


Salem

by la_muerta



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mild Blood and Gore, Minor Character Death, this is now a coffee shop AU as well and I'm not even sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-05-15 11:00:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 61,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19294378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_muerta/pseuds/la_muerta
Summary: Over three hundred years ago, five families in Salem made a deal with a demon. The Lightwoods, Truebloods, Herondales, Fairchilds, and Starkweathers had let every single person in the area with the slightest potential for magic burn in their stead, in return for their own safety and for powers beyond the imagination, passed down through the generations. There's just one catch - in every generation, the sacrifice must be repeated.Magnus moves to Salem for a fresh start, just in time for the Reaping.





	1. Chapter 1

  

 

It was raining on the day that Magnus drove into Salem with all his worldly belongings in his car.

Most of it was clothes - there were two huge suitcases worth of them in the trunk, and three smaller suitcases and a bulging duffle bag stuffed in the backseat, although half of one of the suitcases in the backseat also contained a large wooden box that had belonged to Magnus' mother, nestled securely amongst Magnus' less-favoured clothes. A large cardboard box in the trunk held all of Magnus' ragged paperbacks and some fragile knick-knacks, each piece carefully wrapped in old newspaper, and a pet carrier containing a furious grey-and-white tabby named Chairman Meow was strapped down securely in the seat next to Magnus.

"Almost there, Chairman," Magnus said soothingly as he took a right turn off the highway. 

Magnus followed the instructions from the GPS on his phone down several narrow streets lined with houses and trees. The rain was getting steadily heavier, but even though it was already late in the afternoon, visibility was still good; it was the last week of August, and the long summer days would go on for a little longer yet. After a while, he passed a church made out of pale stone and a sign that said "Entering Salem", but quickly looked away when he realised that there was a sizeable cemetery just beyond the sign. 

He passed two other cemeteries along the way, feeling their presence rather than actually seeing them since he had his eyes fixed on the road, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened further when he entered downtown Salem. Leafy branches were tied to the lamp posts all along the main road with lengths of red string, which Magnus assumed had something to do with warding off witches, and Magnus didn't know if it was just for the general aesthetics or if some superstitions were still alive and well in Salem. Magnus had read up on the Salem Witch Trials before moving here, and he'd memorised where all the execution sites and other notable landmarks were just so he could avoid them, but he had a feeling that it was just something he would have to get used to because there were too many buildings that were supposedly haunted by spectres and bad memories of the town's violent past: Proctor's Ledge, where the people accused of witchcraft had been hanged, and which now overlooked a Walgreens; the red-bricked Social Security office building, which had been built over the dungeons that had held the victims of the trials; and various other places associated with the prosecutors or prosecuted. 

His mother would probably have pointed out that moving to a place like Salem was tempting fate. But Magnus had figured that he'd rather be facing nebulous lingering ghosts from more than three hundred years ago while surrounded by friends, than stay in Brooklyn alone and be haunted by more personal and recent ghosts. He was just glad that Ragnor's house wasn't near any of the cemeteries or "places of interest". In fact, it was near the hospital where Magnus thought he might choose to do his clinical practicum, and was pretty near the main campus of Salem State University.  

Magnus relaxed a little when he got to the residential part of the town. He passed by a playground on the way, as well as a few small shops and even a McDonald's, catering to the people who didn't want to bother with a ten-minute drive into town for food and groceries. Everything seemed perfectly normal and quiet. 

He stopped in front of a cheery yellow two-storey house with an attic, checking the address again to make sure he had the right place, then ran up the steps with Chairman's carrier in his arms to the shelter of the front porch and knocked on the door. Instead of Ragnor, the door was answered by Catarina. 

"Magnus! How was the drive up?" she asked, kissing his cheek in greeting. 

"Good, but the catnip wore off about an hour ago, so Chairman's a bit upset."

"Aww, poor darling," she cooed, taking over the carrier. "I'll open the garage door for you, and we can get the both of you settled in."

 

 

As it turned out, Catarina was the only one at home. Ragnor was still at work in his office in the Salem Museum downtown, while Catarina's girlfriend Dot was spending some time visiting her family in Danvers, the next town over. Dot was part of the reason why Catarina had chosen to move to Salem for her studies even though she could have gone anywhere with her grades - Catarina had come up to visit Ragnor one summer when she had still been in high school, and had fallen in love with Dot in a whirlwind summer romance. Salem wasn't that far from New York City, but the distance had still been trying on their relationship. Coupled with the fact that Ragnor - who had been too much older to be in school with them but had become best friends with Magnus and Catarina because they were neighbours - had also settled down in Salem because of his interest in the history of the area, enrolling in the nursing programme at Salem State University had been a no-brainer. 

They set up the Chairman's litter box, put out some food and water for it, and while the cat was tentatively exploring the place, Catarina gave Magnus a tour of the house. Catarina told him that the house had been built in the early 1800s, and while it wasn't very big, it was definitely comfortable enough for the four of them. There was a basement, used mostly for storage, and the first floor held a well-stocked kitchen with a dining table stashed in an odd corner, the living room, washing area, and a spare toilet. There were two bedrooms on the second floor, each with its own en suite bathroom, and finally the attic, which had previously been used as a TV room but would now be Magnus' bedroom.  

"Just a shower in here - no bathtub, I'm afraid," Catarina said apologetically. 

"It's alright, I don't mind," Magnus said with a smile.

Catarina helped Magnus move all his things up, and by the time they made the last trip, the Chairman was feeling daring enough to follow them up the stairs.

"I'm going to be in such good shape from climbing those stairs every day," Magnus huffed, lying down on the hardwood floor.

Catarina sat down next to him and laughed, wiping her brow. The Chairman meowed and butted its head against Magnus' face, fussing until Magnus finally sat up and let the tabby settle in his lap. Magnus looked around at the low slanted ceiling, blank white walls, and built-in shelves and closets. The queen-sized bed already had a mattress and bedding, and there was a sturdy writing desk in a corner - welcome gifts from Catarina, Dot, and Ragnor. The only sounds in the room were the contented purrs from the cat and the rain falling lightly on the roof. It was really quiet here; nothing like the constant hustle and bustle of New York City. 

"Are you ok?" Catarina asked.  

Magnus was quiet for a long time, scratching the Chairman under its chin and behind the ears until it was a vibrating ball of contentment. "I miss her," he finally replied. 

"I'm so sorry, Magnus." Catarina scooted over to put her arms around him.

Magnus closed his eyes, sinking into the hug, and tried not to think about wet pavement, about slipping on it as he ran towards the prone figure on the ground. Tried not to think about how he hadn't been able to stop the bleeding despite all his first aid training, tried not to think about how his mother's hands - fine-boned, calloused from her day job as a janitor, and so much smaller - had grown cold in his. Chairman Meow protested at being squashed between the two of them and squirmed away, then jumped lightly on top of one of Magnus' suitcases.

"Do you need my help unpacking?" Catarina asked.

Magnus shook his head. "I'll do it tomorrow. Anyway I don't have much, and I've got almost a week before school starts."

"You've done all the paperwork for your transfer?"

"I probably need to pop down to the office on the first day of term, but it's done," Magnus replied. "I need to do some shopping though, for books and stuff. And I need to get a job." 

"The coffee shop in town is hiring," Catarina said. "I know the boss. Quiet guy, about our age - named Raphael."

"Thanks. I'll check it out," Magnus said.

There was the sound of a car on the street outside, and Catarina's face lit up when she saw who it was. "Dot's home." 

"I'll be down in a bit after I freshen up," Magnus said.

Catarina nodded, and was already halfway out of the door when she turned back to ask, "Hey, I know it's been a long day, but do you want to go to a party tonight?" 

"Have you met me?" Magnus asked, getting to his feet with a flourish, and Catarina laughed. 

"It's sort of an unofficial welcome back party organised by the student government of Salem State University. Most of the people there will be at least sophomores, but there'll be some freshmen if they came to Salem early for orientation week. It's at Dead Horse Beach." 

Magnus wrinkled his nose. "Charming name." But a party would be a good way to get to know people, especially since he was new in town. "Well, I guess that means I should get some unpacking done then, if I'm going to have an outfit for this party," Magnus said. 

Magnus went into the narrow en suite bathroom to splash some water on his face, headed down to say hi to Dot, then made his way back up to his room to tackle one of the large suitcases. It didn't take long for him to find most of what he needed, but he didn't really want to wear his good jeans to a beach party. His gaze lighted on the suitcase the Chairman was sleeping on.

It took some persuading to get the cat off the suitcase, and it stalked downstairs, disgruntled about being woken up. Magnus took a deep breath and braced himself before opening the suitcase. He took out a pair of jeans that had a stain at the hem that wouldn't wash off, and uncovered a wooden box that had been worn smooth by frequent handling, the carvings indistinct in places. The box contained the tools of his mother's craft: hornbill skulls and the antlers from some sort of deer; bottles filled with oils, seeds, herbs, bones, and dried insects; effigies woven out of _rattan,_ a type of dried vine; a collection of tiny needles no bigger than the fingernail of his pinky finger, made from pure gold; rocks and pieces of semi-precious stones; and a wide array of sharp hooks and odd instruments that Magnus didn't know the names or purposes of. There was also ceremonial dagger with a wavy blade, called a _keris_ , and a book of cheap, thin paper covered with his mother's neat handwriting, intended to pass on the knowledge of the uses for all these things to Magnus, if he were ever so inclined to follow in his mother's footsteps as a _dukun_ \- a witch doctor.

Magnus knew that it wasn't just superstitious nonsense, and that he had a talent. But his mother hadn't pushed, and while Magnus had been curious, in between schoolwork and friends and various distractions, sitting down to learn how to mix _jamu_ for ailments or practice the art of _susuk_ \- inserting the minuscule gold needles inside the soft tissues of the body as part of a spell - had never been a priority for him. If Magnus was honest, the feeling of the magic thrumming inside his veins each time he attempted to harness it had been so overwhelming that it had scared him a little. Still, his mother had been patient but insistent - it was something he would have to learn to control before it controlled him, but she would wait for whenever he was ready. 

Well, it was too late now. All her magic hadn't been able to save her when she'd been mugged on the way home from work - just a random, senseless act of violence, one that could possibly have been prevented if Magnus had been there to walk her home. It wasn't even like they were rich, or that she might have tried to fight off her assailant, since Magnus' mother had always said that the loss of material things could sometimes advert a bigger misfortune. 

After the funeral was the first time Magnus had ever opened the box on his own. Mad with fury and grief, the magic that he usually ignored had been sparking at his fingertips, looking for an outlet, and Magnus had been ready to burn the world down. He'd opened his mother's book with the intent to find a spell that would make the person who had murdered his mother _pay_ , make them scream and cry and beg for death - and had been completely disarmed by a post-it on the first page with a message for him: " _Never forget that I love you and I believe in you. But Magnus sayang, siapa menabur angin, akan menuai badai._ " 

The second part was an Indonesian proverb that his mother often quoted - he who sows a wind, will reap a storm; don't start trouble unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences, which may blow up into something far beyond what you expected. It had stopped him right in his tracks, and Magnus had closed the box and tried to put it all behind him, together with his old life in Brooklyn. 

Magnus took all the clothes out of the suitcase, leaving only the box untouched, and was about to lock the whole thing and shove it under the bed, then hesitated. He opened the suitcase again and unlocked the wooden box, then gingerly took out the _keris_ , which was still in its sheath and wrapped in an incredibly soft piece of leather. Following an instinct he couldn't quite name, he stashed the whole bundle under his mattress, then resolutely locked the box and suitcase and pushed it under the bed. 

"Magnus! Get your fabulous ass down and help us with dinner!" Dot called from downstairs. 

Magnus huffed out a laugh, shaking off the dark thoughts that had crept up on him, and went downstairs to join his friends. 

 

 

It had stopped raining by the time they were done with dinner. Apparently the party didn't really get going until midnight, so they hung around the living room catching up with each other until Ragnor shooed them out so he could go to bed. Magnus had his reservations about a beach party in soggy sand, but he was impressed that somehow they'd managed to get a bonfire going, and the music and speaker system wasn't half-bad. His only complaint was that nobody had thought to bring any alcohol, and the only "approved" drink was canned soda. 

"I thought this was organised by students. I can't believe there isn't even beer," Magnus said.  

Catarina shrugged. "Alec Lightwood is the head of the student government. He's a bit of a stickler for the rules, but he's a decent guy."

"At least it's free," Dot said, taking a sip of her soda. "Besides, I'm sure someone did bring something. I just saw Emil doing a leopard crawl, in the nude."  

"In the sand? Ouch. I don't like him much, but there's plenty of broken glass around," Catarina said. 

"Someone tried to stop him, and I heard him yelling that he was fine because he had a very small dick," Dot said with a grin. 

Magnus snorted. "On second thought, I don't think I want what he's drinking." 

 

\--

 

On the side of the party further away from the music and the bonfire, Alec was lurking in the shadows of the trees that grew at the edge of the beach, scowling. 

"Hey, man. Why the long face? Did someone sneak in an illegal six-pack or something?" Jace asked as he came up to Alec, Izzy and Jonathan right behind him.  

"Jace, did you do that to Emil?" Alec asked with a frown. 

"Yeah. He was asking for it," Jace said with a shrug. "I heard what he said to you just now." 

"I told you, the slurs don't bother me, I expected that when I came out before summer break. You shouldn't have used your magic," Alec said. 

"The hell it doesn't bother you. And even if it didn't, he's a homophobic asshole and he deserved it," Jace said.

Izzy slipped her arm around Alec's waist to give him a hug, quietly supportive. She knew he didn't like it when they used their magic, but she wouldn't have stood by and let Emil get away with it either. Knowing Izzy, she'd have gone for the more direct approach - kick Emil in the balls.

"I thought it was pretty funny," Jonathan offered. 

"My man," Jace said with a grin, clapping him on the shoulder. "Anyway Emil's just lucky he doesn't have a single ounce of potential for magic, or I'd have marked him for the Reaping."

Alec shot him a sharp look. "Don't joke about that."

Jace sobered up a little. "Halloween's coming and I think we've got like twelve names on the list. How the hell are we going to chalk up thirty-three people by then?"

"There should've been plenty of new people drawn to the town since the last Reaping, right?" Jonathan said, fidgeting with his sleeve. "I mean, just amongst the students, surely some of them have the gift."

"Jonathan, you're talking about _murder_. Sacrificing a bunch of people to a demon so that we get to keep using magic for stupid things, like making dumb jocks humiliate themselves," Izzy hissed.

"What choice do we have? If it was just about our magic, maybe we could convince our parents that we should all stop. But we don't know what the consequences of breaking the covenant might be," Jonathan pointed out unhappily. "Are you willing to risk everyone? Clary? _Max_?" 

Alec clenched his jaw and said nothing. Three hundred years ago, during the height of paranoia and hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials, all their families had made a deal with a demon - the deaths of everyone with the potential for magic in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in exchange for the safety of themselves and their families, and immense magical power passed down through the generations. Unfortunately, all the lives that had been claimed during the Trials hadn't been enough for the demon. Every thirty-six years, the demon would reappear to demand a sacrifice of thirty-three magic-gifted people by the blood moon on Halloween, and the five families - the Lightwoods, Truebloods, Herondales, Fairchilds, and Starkweathers - had agreed that each family would offer at least one sacrifice for the Reaping, which made sure they were all complicit in it. There was not much Alec could do to stop everyone from offering names, but he'd be damned if he was going to be part of it. 

Jace sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Come on. Let's see if there's anything interesting at this party, he said, leading the way.

Izzy hung back with with Alec, and gave him a reassuring smile. "We'll figure out a way to end this, big brother," she whispered.  

Alec smiled back and offered her his arm, and the four of them walked towards the bonfire together.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

The day after the beach party, Brad Cruorem had been sleeping in his dorm room when he woke up to a sharp pain in his stomach. He'd tried to chat up Clary Fairchild at the party the night before and was confident that she'd have stopped playing hard-to-get and given him her number eventually if her scrawny, speccy friend hadn't gotten in his way - Brad was the type of guy who could be very charming when he wanted to. It wasn't his fault that her loser friend had fallen on his ass and cut his hand badly on something buried in the wet sand. Brad had hightailed out of there pretty quickly though, definitely not because of that stick-in-the-mud Alec Lightwood, or Jace Herondale getting in his face and itching to pick a fight, or because Jonathan Fairchild had been just standing there glaring at him like a creepy scarecrow.  

Brad staggered to the toilet to throw up - and coughed out a live spider the size of a gumdrop. He stared at the creature struggling in the water in disbelief, but there was a horrible sensation of something else squirming in his throat that felt too much like something with many legs, and he retched again. He coughed out spider after spider into the toilet, and by the time the toilet bowl was full of creepy-crawlies, the water was red with blood as well, and there were spiders everywhere - on his face, his hands, swarming out of his throat. Brad clawed at his mouth, scrambling to dig them all out of him, then gasped and fell face first into the toilet bowl.

His roommate found his corpse a few hours later, his mouth and hands bloodied and face blue. The coroner's verdict was that he had somehow ripped out his own tongue and choked on it.

There wasn't a single spider in sight anywhere in his room.

  

\--

  

Magnus could have sworn that he had more days before term started to get everything settled, but between unpacking and buying various necessities like shampoo and cat food, and spending some much-needed quality time with his friends, the days had flown past. 

"How's your first day been so far?" Dot asked Magnus, falling in step with him as they walked down the hallway. 

"I didn't get to go for any of my morning classes because of paperwork, and unfortunately Cat is taking a slightly different set of modules so she wasn't in all of them. But I doubt that I missed much," Magnus said. 

"And if you did, I'm sure you can charm the notes off a classmate," Dot said, waggling an eyebrow. 

Magnus hummed and arched an eyebrow back at her. "Somehow I get the feeling that you're not just talking about notes." 

Dot winked at him, giggling. "Lunch?"

Magnus shrugged and let her lead the way to the dining hall, where they grabbed sad greasy slabs of something that was being sold as pizza and wilted salads, and Magnus silently promised himself that he would be making takeaway lunches for everyone in the house from now on. There were tables and chairs outside the dining hall, so they went out to find seats where they could get some sun. Everywhere was full, but a red-haired girl waved them over when she spotted Dot. 

"Clary! How are you doing? I heard that you had a huge fight with your mom," Dot said, giving Clary a tight hug. 

"I'm ok," she said. "I'm crashing with Simon now."

"What was the fight about?" Dot asked. 

Magnus noticed Clary's gaze flicker briefly to him before she answered, "Just the usual. I want to get out of Salem, but she says I'm too young and too naive, yada yada."

"I'm so sorry," Dot said sympathetically. "Bear with it a little longer. After college, you can go anywhere you want." 

Introductions were made all around the table - Magnus learned that Clary and Simon were best friends, both freshmen, though Clary was in Art and Simon was in Music. Simon was delighted to hear that Magnus had applied for the barista position at Raphael's coffee shop - Simon was renting a room from Raphael, and they lived in the apartment just above the shop. 

When they were done with their lunch and almost ready to leave, a pretty dark-haired girl looked over and hesitantly waved at Clary from across the courtyard, and Clary knocked her stack of books off the table when she tried to wave back. "Oh my god, I'm such a mess," she muttered as she stooped down to pick up her books, flashing a quick smile at Magnus when he bent down to help her.

"Isabelle Lightwood has that effect, especially on Clary," Simon observed. 

Dot gasped. "Then go and talk to her! Aren't your families close? I thought you used to play together when you were kids." 

"Hashtag mutual pining, childhood friends to lovers," Simon agreed, and yelped when Clary promptly smacked him hard on the shoulder.

"We haven't really spoken in years, I've sort of drifted apart from them. It happens," Clary said, her eyes following Isabelle Lightwood in a way that could only be interpreted as wistful. 

"Seize the day, Clary!" Dot scolded, grabbing Clary by her arms and shaking her. 

"It's complicated," Clary protested. 

"How complicated can it be? I've seen the way Isabelle looks at you," Simon said. 

"Simon, just drop it, please," Clary said miserably, sweeping all her books into her arms and running off. 

"Shit. Clary, wait! I'll see you guys later," Simon said, dashing after her and shouting apologies. 

 

 

By the time Magnus finished his classes for the day, it was four in the afternoon. Cat and Dot had offered to come with him for moral support, but he knew it was their usual date night, so he'd shooed them off firmly. He parked his car in a parking lot behind a seafood restaurant, one street away from the coffee shop, and was just locking his car when he saw a shadowy figure out of the corner of his eye, standing under a tree a dozen feet to his left. He didn't look up, but he could feel their eyes on him, and a chill ran up his spine - it never got easier, even though he had been able to sense the presence of spirits since he was old enough to talk. 

"I don't want any trouble," he said out loud, already mentally casting out a protective bubble the way his mother had taught him. If anybody was watching, they'd probably think he was a crazy person talking to himself - or maybe not, since he'd discovered that Salem could be quite open-minded about people who claimed to have supernatural talents.

Much to his relief, the spectre didn't approach him. He gave it a wide berth as well as, and made his way down a narrow alley that led to the cobblestones and red brick that lined the pedestrian mall which took up part of Essex Street. This was tourist central, surrounded by the museums and historical sites associated with the Salem Witch Trials. Dot and Cat had dragged him out on a tour a few days ago, so he knew what he was in for - and while some places like the Witch Dungeon Museum had been horrifying simply because it was a reminder of the cruelty and madness humans could be capable of when swept up in hysteria and self-righteousness, most of the places were just sad and heavy with the accumulation of pity and sympathy from thousands of people over the centuries. There were no ghosts here; just bad memories and shops selling crystals and offering tarot readings, all decorated with tacky hags on broomsticks and fake cobwebs like it was Halloween all year round in Salem. 

The coffee shop owned by Raphael was right at the end of the street, and was doing a brisk business. Most of his customers were college students, probably because there was a discount for students advertised in the window, and Magnus guessed that the eye-catching poster had been designed by Clary. Simon was clearing tables, and grinned at Magnus when he spotted him.

"Hey! C'mon, I'll help you get hold of Raphael," Simon said, beckoning him over.

"Maybe I should come back another day. You guys look busy," Magnus said.

"And that is entirely Raphael's own fault because he's too picky about the applicants, so the sooner he hires someone the better," Simon said, leading the way to the counter. The queue was insane, snaking around a third of the shop, and there were only two people behind the counter - Clary, who was handling the customers, and a surly-looking young man who was filling the coffee orders as quickly as he could.

"Decaf soy milk frappuccino with extra whipped cream and chocolate sauce, no sugar," the girl at the counter was saying, but someone else was trying to get Clary's attention as well, asking about a muffin he'd ordered fifteen minutes ago. 

"Sorry, I'll be with you in a bit!" Clary told the guy, then turned back to the girl at the counter. "Decaf soy milk with extra- I'm so sorry, could you please repeat that?"

"Decaf soy milk frappuccino with extra whipped cream and chocolate sauce, no sugar," Magnus repeated, shooting the customer a brilliant smile and a flirty wink, and the girl forgot to be annoyed.

"Raphael, Magnus is applying for a job," Simon chimed in helpfully. "He's friends with Dot and Catarina."

Raphael frowned at Magnus and nodded. "Grab an apron," he said gruffly. "Clary, you can go back to baking."

Simon gave Magnus a thumbs up gesture, and Clary gratefully handed Magnus a spare apron before escaping into the kitchen. Between the four of them, they managed to survive until closing. Magnus was helping to put up the chairs on the tables when Raphael stopped him, and gestured that he should take a seat.

"You've got experience as a barista," Raphael said. A statement, not a question. 

"Yes. And after morning rush hour in New York, this is nothing," Magnus said.

"I pay Simon and Clary almost minimum wage because they get their rent cheap. I can't afford very much more than that for you, even if you're experienced," Raphael warned. 

"Wow, Raphael, stop being so positive and welcoming," Simon said, plopping down on a seat next to Raphael. "Ok, Magnus, I have one question for you, and this is the most important question in this interview: what's the name of this shop?"

Magnus had seen the sign before he stepped in. Cat had called it the "Coffee n Brew", but the way that the sign was designed, the 'n' was very close to the word before it. "Coffeen Brew?" Magnus guessed, since this was Salem after all. 

"Yes! He gets it! You're hired," Simon declared. "I suggested the name for the shop, by the way." 

Raphael rolled his eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh. "I think you're forgetting that _I'm_ the boss," he muttered. "But yes, ok, you're hired if you still want the job. Nine dollars per hour." 

It was slightly less than what Magnus had been hoping to get, but working with people you got along with was always worth the pay-cut. "I'll take it," he said, and Simon and Clary both cheered. 

 

 

Magnus was still in good spirits a little later when he walked down the narrow alley to the parking lot. He had almost forgotten all about the spectre; but there it was again, watching him. It was past midnight now, and a cold wind blew across the empty parking lot, a reminder that summer was over and autumn was on its way. Magnus unlocked the car door as quickly as he could without showing his fear, because these things were always very good at sensing weaknesses. Just then, his stomach growled - in all the madness at the coffee shop, Magnus had forgotten about dinner, and the last thing he'd eaten was the terrible food from the dining hall. Much to his surprise, there was a rustle in the shadows, and an apple came rolling towards him to stop at his feet.

Magnus stared down at it. He was pretty sure there wasn't a single apple tree in the vicinity. He picked it up to be polite, but there was no way in hell that he was eating an apple from a ghost, no matter how hungry he was. "Thanks," he said, and quickly got into the car.

When he got home, he succumbed to the temptation of a cup of instant ramen because he was too tired to cook proper food, and had to psych himself up before scaling the stairs to his bedroom. He took a shower, the smell of coffee still lingering in his nose, and as he was towelling his hair, his gaze drifted to the spot under his mattress where he had hidden his mother's _keris_. 

He fished it out and drew it out of its scabbard. This particular _keris_ had thirteen _luks_ , or waves in the blade, and many fine lines patterned on the blade called _pamor Mrambut_. The edges of blade hadn't been sharpened in generations so as an actual weapon it was probably crap, but it had never been intended as protection against _physical_ harm. Magnus put it back in its scabbard and wrapped it up, then put the _keris_ on the topmost shelf. The apple he had been gifted joined the _keris_ on the shelf, and a quick search on his phone soon provided him with the answers he was looking for - the land where the parking lot now stood had once been an apple orchard belonging to Bridget Bishop, the first person to be hanged for witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials.

  

\--

 

Danvers was a twenty-minute drive away from the university campus, and it was a trip that Alec, Izzy, Jace, and Jonathan made twice every day. Lightwood House had been vacated after Robert Lightwood had died of a heart attack some years back, with the Lightwoods moving back into Maryse Trueblood's childhood home, but that was where Alec, Izzy, and Jace had hung out after school since they were teenagers.  

Alec dropped Jonathan off at the Fairchild House, and the three went on towards the Trueblood House and a little further still, down a tree-lined road that led to the intimidating three-storied mansion that Alec and Izzy had grown up in. All the houses belonging to the five families had been built in the 1700s, and although the structures and facade of the buildings had mostly been preserved, the families had kept up with the times; all the houses had modern amenities like running water, electricity, central air conditioning, and modern security systems. There had been more people living in these houses once, which accounted for their sprawling size and all the extra rooms; bigger families with more children, more servants, gardeners, probably even stablehands for the empty stables at the back that had been converted into a garage. Alec's brows furrowed with concentration as they got in sight of the house, and the gates swung open, burglar alarms disabled long enough for him to drive in. 

They went in through the servants' entrance of the dreary grey building, locks opening at a touch and lights flickering on at a thought. It was almost second nature for them to use magic for simple things like that, even for Alec who tried to use his magic sparingly. Jace raided their stash of food in the pantry, and they sat at the well-worn kitchen table eating chips and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

"Did you hear about what happened to that jerk from the beach party? The one who pushed Clary's friend?" Jace asked.

"I checked the list. Someone marked him for the Reaping," Alec said quietly. "Wasn't either of you, right?"

"No! Jeez," Jace huffed. "It's got to be Jonathan. You know how protective he gets over Clary."

"I saw her at school today," Izzy said, crumbling the crust of her sandwich absently. "I wish she didn't feel like she can't hang out with us just because she's got no magic."

"Well, it's probably also partly because she feels bad that her father was a psychopath who tried to steal all our magic when we were kids, and our parents only stopped him just in time," Jace pointed out.

"Jonathan doesn't seem to find it awkward," Alec muttered darkly. "I wish he'd stop hanging around us all the time."

"Jonathan is a bit intense, but _you'd_ probably be just as bad if Izzy or Max suddenly lost their magic," Jace said dismissively. "Besides, who else would he hang out with? We're his only friends. Our families always stick together."

Alec snorted. "He's not going to be friends with us for much longer when he finds out that we're trying to find a way to break the covenant. I think he and his mom are hoping that after the Reaping is completed on Halloween, they can ask The Lady to give Clary back her magic."

"That's probably why Clary moved out to live with Simon on the night that the screech owl came to herald the start of the Reaping. She'd never have agreed to something like that," Izzy said.

They were silent for a while, eating their food. They'd searched through every spellbook they could get their hands on in the last couple of years, but hadn't found anything on killing demons, or at least nothing powerful enough to kill the demon their ancestors had called on - the mother of all demons, Lilith. And since all their magic came from Lilith, Alec doubted they'd be able to use it against her. He was beginning to suspect that the spells that might be useful to them had been in the spellbook Jonathan and Clary's father Valentine Morgenstern had used to try to steal their magic, except that the spellbook had been destroyed and Valentine Morgenstern was long dead.

"Were there any other new names on the list?" Izzy asked. 

"One, excluding Cruorem - which brings the total up to fourteen," Alec replied. "Some guy called Trevor Hayse."

 

\--

  

Trevor Hayes was alone in his autoshop doing a routine tuning for a customer when he suddenly stood up and dropped his tools on the floor, then blankly went about raising up the car he was working on with a hydraulic car jack. He had gotten under the car in a daze, staring up at the underside, not moving or touching anything. A few seconds later, the seals on the valves on the jack popped off and the car fell on him, trapping him underneath four thousand pounds of metal. The car was crushing the breath out of him, but Trevor still tried to cry out for help at first. No one heard him. He took half an hour to suffocate to death. 

Trevor had been well-liked in Salem. He was a competent mechanic, friendly with the neighbours, and always willing to offer a helping hand, especially with lost pets - he just had a way with animals, and he'd never met a dog that wouldn't wag its tail at him or a cat that would scratch him. Trevor had no children, and no other living relatives; the autoshop had been his grandfather's, and Trevor's father had taught him how to fix a carburettor right there in the shop when he was a boy. The autoshop was in a row of shops, and a week ago Trevor had turned down an offer for it for the third time, because he wasn't going to let his grandfather's shop be bulldozed to make way for a stupid strip mall.

Unfortunately for Trevor, Stephen Herondale, who was the most prominent real estate developer in Salem, just didn't like taking 'no' for an answer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

"This isn't going to work," Jace declared.

Izzy rolled her eyes at him, undoing the clasp of the necklace she wore around her neck, which held a single large ruby set in silver filigree. The pendant was a Lightwood family heirloom, and Izzy wore it for amplifying her powers. "If we don't at least try this, we might as well give up trying to break the covenant altogether."

"Honestly, I don't think we have a choice," Jace said. "What do we do even if we manage to track down all the gifted in the whole area? I mean, it isn't just Danvers and Salem, we're talking all the way up to Ipswich. How many gifted are there? A hundred? More? What are you going to do, send them all a postcard saying 'You're sort of a witch and there might be a demon after you, run!'?"

"No, that'd be dumb, because they're just going to think it's a prank and throw it in the trash," Izzy said. 

"We're going to plant a hex bag in their yards or cars, a protection spell to ward off the Reaping curse," Alec explained. "If we split up to make the rounds, I think we might be able to cover all of them in a few days." 

Jace groaned and let his head drop on the table with a loud thunk. "I don't think we can come up with a hex bag strong enough for that. Besides, they've already offered twenty people for the Reaping, and Halloween is still six weeks away. Is this really worth the effort to save a dozen randos?"

"Every person we stop them from Reaping is another person saved," Izzy said, smoothing out the map Alec had bought from the gas station, the latest one, as far as he could tell. 

"Since we can't kill the demon, this is the only thing we can do. Stop feeding her with the sacrifices she demands, and maybe she'll go away," Alec said.

The three of them were sitting in a circle on the floor of what had been Izzy's old bedroom in the Lightwood House, where she kept most of her candles, herbs, and odd things for experimental spellwork that their mother would have blown a fuse over, and right now her collection of candles and crystals were definitely coming in handy. The older members of the five families - Maryse Trueblood, Stephen Herondale, Jocelyn Fairchild, and Hodge Starkweather - didn't think much of new age "witchcraft" with all its props and paraphernalia, but Izzy was insistent that it wasn't all nonsense.  

"Come on, Jace. This is going to take all of us," Izzy said cajolingly as she placed some of the crystals around the map in a formation she'd been testing out while Alec helped to light all the candles with a snap of his fingers. 

Jace sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "This is such a bad idea. You know it's going to come back to us threefold," he muttered, but held out one hand towards Izzy and the other towards Alec.

Alec took Jace's hand and placed one hand on his sister's shoulder, while Izzy used her free hand to hold her necklace steady above the centre of Salem on the map, the tip of the ruby pendant hovering about an inch above the paper. All three of them closed their eyes, concentrating. It wasn't difficult for them to recognise other gifted people when they came face-to-face with them - sometimes it was just a hunch, but it was easy to see once you knew how to look for it. But trying to track other gifted this way over such a large area, especially since the magic that these people possessed might be no more than a tiny spark of possibility, was a bit trickier. 

They opened their eyes at the same time, and the flame from the all the candles around them flared up, rising a few inches higher than normal with the force of the magic they were channelling into the pendant. Alec could see that both Izzy and Jace's eyes had gone completely black with no whites at all, and he repressed a shiver; he'd seen their eyes like this before of course, when they used a lot of power, and he knew that his eyes looked the same even though he didn't feel any different, but he could never get over the wrongness of it. 

"Show us," Izzy said in a low voice, and the pendant began to spin in slow circles. "Magic calls to magic. Show us."

The pendant began to spin a little faster, making bigger circles, until it suddenly pulled taut like it had been magnetised. Izzy let the pendant guide her hand, but instead of touching the paper, the pendant slipped to the side. It soon became clear that something powerful was drawing the pendant but wouldn't allow them to pinpoint the exact spot that the power was originating from - the pendant would slip and slide over an invisible dome that covered the whole downtown and residential area of Salem, all the way to the university, and if they tried to do the same spell over Ipswich or Peabody, the pendant would be irresistibly drawn back to Salem. 

"What the fuck? Why is it doing that?" Jace asked, blinking as his eyes returned to their normal mismatched blue and brown. 

"Someone with power, a lot of power," Alec muttered. "And they know how to use it. They've cast a protective spell so strong that it's blocking out half the city." 

"Stronger than the three of us combined?" Jace asked, impressed.

"I'm sure we could break the spell if we tried hard enough, but then they'd know that we're on to them," Alec said.

"Does this mean that they made a deal as well, but with a demon stronger than Lilith?" Jace asked musingly.

Izzy shook her head. "It's impossible to tell. But if they're a natural witch, this is huge. We have to find them."

"Why? Do you think we can convince Lilith to just take them instead so we don't have to sacrifice another dozen people?" Jace asked.  

"No, stupid. They might know how to help us get rid of Lilith!" Izzy replied impatiently. 

"Or, they might decide to kill us and steal our powers, the way Valentine Morgenstern tried to," Jace pointed out.

"Whatever it is, we have to find this person before the others do, because if the others find them first, they're as good as dead," Alec said grimly. 

Alec's phone went off, and the three of them jumped. Alec dug his phone out of his pocket and put a finger to his lips warningly before he picked up the call. "Hi, Mom. Yeah, we'll be home soon. Yeah, sure. Bye."

"Is your mom making pot roast?" Jace asked, and pumped his fist when Alec nodded. "C'mon, let's go, I'm starving. We can figure out what to do with this unknown witch tomorrow."

 

 

Jace's mother had died when he was only a baby, and his father hadn't known what to do with him and didn't seem all that interested in looking after his own son, so Maryse and Robert Lightwood had ended up taking over the care of Jace when he had been no more than a toddler. As far as Maryse was concerned, Jace was one of her own, so he was always invited to dinner.

Maryse was Mayor of Salem and extremely busy, but she made the effort to have dinner with her children at least twice a week. Conversation at dinner was light-hearted and easy, but Alec knew something was up when Maryse excused Max from helping with the dishes so he could do his homework - homework was never an excuse for not helping around the house, and Maryse had always been adamant that her children learnt to do  _some_ things without magic.  

The moment Max was safely out of earshot, Maryse got straight to the point. "I need the three of you to stop whatever you're doing up at Lightwood House."

"What? We haven't been to the old place in ages," Izzy said, feigning innocence. 

Maryse pursed her lips. "You used a lot of magic up there today, I felt it in the walls." When the three of them remained stubbornly silent, she sighed, her stern expression softening. "You're my children. Don't you think I know the three of you well enough? I know the Reaping is horrific, but there's nothing we can do about it. Don't meddle in things you don't understand."

"You said it yourself, it's just wrong. We can't do nothing about it, you didn't raise us like that," Alec said quietly. 

"I didn't raise you to throw your lives away on foolish heroics," Maryse said sharply. She took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly before she began to speak again. "You know that Max is named after my older brother."

"Yeah, he died a long time ago, right?" Jace said. 

"He died thirty-six years ago."

They all stared at her. "Wait, you're not saying... he was _Reaped_?" Izzy asked, her voice rising with horror, and Alec quickly shushed her, in case Max overheard.

"He didn't want to be a part of the Reaping, but more than that, he didn't want to keep the secret of the covenant anymore. He tried to go to the TV station, to show them what he could do - a witch with magic, _real_ magic," Maryse said. "I was only fourteen then, and I don't know if my parents would have been able to stop it if we had discovered it sooner, but Aloysius Starkweather - Hodge's grandfather - somehow found out about my brother's plans, and marked him for the Reaping."

"But he was one of us! A descendant from the five families!" Izzy protested. 

"And any person with the potential for magic in their veins can be offered to The Lady for her taking," Maryse reminded them. "Yes, we don't offer our own for the Reaping, but that's not because it can't be done. If the rest of them found out what you were trying to do..."

"They could offer all of us for the Reaping. Us, you, Max," Alec said quietly. "Alright, we understand."

Maryse smiled sadly at them, patting Alec on the cheek and putting her arms around Izzy and Jace to give them both a gentle squeeze. "I'll finish up here. Go on and watch TV or something." 

"No, we'll help," Alec insisted, and by the time all the dishes were washed and dried, it was time for Jace to head home.

The three of them piled into Alec's car, the silence heavy between them as Alec drove down the dark roads that led to the Herondale family mansion.

"Are we really going to drop it?" Izzy asked.

"Yes?! I mean, I wouldn't put it past my dad to put me up for the Reaping if he finds out. He doesn't give a shit about me," Jace said.

"Except it's too late, isn't it? Jonathan knows that we're against the Reaping, and if none of us put any sacrifices up, they'll suspect something is up," Alec said.

"That's true, Jonathan is a real momma's boy, he tells Jocelyn everything," Jace muttered. "So what are we going to do now? I could talk to Jonathan, try to get him to keep it quiet or find out if he's told Jocelyn."

Izzy nodded. "Lie to him, whatever it takes to keep Jocelyn in the dark. I'm going to try to find our unknown witch, to see if they know anything about banishing demons."

"Whoever they are, they're probably a student at the university - someone new in town, because there's no way nobody has noticed someone this powerful before," Alec said slowly. "I'll try to get my hands on the student records, but we're going to be careful about this, just in case they turn out to be dangerous."

"And if they are?" Jace asked.

Alec clenched his jaw, hands tightening on the steering wheel. "Then I guess the Lightwoods will be able to fulfil the terms of the covenant, and offer at least one person for the Reaping."

 

  

A few days later, Jace finally managed to get Jonathan out of their hair by asking him to be his spotter for weight-lifting at the gym, leaving Alec and Izzy to track down the mysterious witch. 

They'd already tried the freshmen first, hanging at the back of lecture halls for first year classes, but while there were a couple of gifted, nobody had that kind of raw power they were looking for. That left them with transfer students, and Izzy had immediately zeroed in on one of them, a final year pre-med student named Magnus Bane. 

"I can't believe I didn't see it. He's been hanging out with Clary, if he meant any harm to us it'd make sense for him to get close to her since she's the only one who can't sense that he has magic," Izzy fumed. 

"You said he's got a room in the same house as Dot and her girlfriend, and we've always known that those two have the gift. Maybe we were wrong and it's not one witch but a full coven," Alec said. "But if it really is this Bane guy, I doubt he'll try anything funny in public. Half the school comes to this coffee shop."

"I hope you're right," Izzy murmured as they walked down Essex Street. 

 

\--

 

Afternoons at the Coffeen Brew were busy, but the combination of Clary's fall special carrot muffins and a new extra-strong coffee drink Magnus had named "Death Wish" for Halloween had made them even busier, so none of them usually had the time to pay any mind to who came in the door. Magnus couldn't say why he had looked up right at the moment that Isabelle and Alec Lightwood walked in, but when his eyes met Alec's, Alec had seemed to freeze in place, eyes widening and visibly sucking in a breath.

Magnus knew who Isabelle was, of course, what with Clary's massive crush on her, and Cat had pointed Alec out to him from across the courtyard on campus, but he had never been properly introduced to either of them. From what he'd heard of Alec Lightwood, he was recently out but had been vocal for LGBTQA+ rights on campus even before, and wasn't afraid to go head-to-head with the university administration, although that might also have been because his mom was the Mayor. Anyway Cat liked him and she'd always had a knack for reading people, and Magnus could admit that he'd tap that ass in a heartbeat.

Magnus flashed a smile at them and quickly turned his attention back to filling drink orders while watching them out of the corner of his eye. The Lightwoods stepped out of the shop, and Magnus could see them having a furious whispered conversation outside the window, before they both stepped back in and Isabelle practically shoved her brother towards the queue for the counter. 

Alec swallowed hard when he reached the front of the queue. "Hi," he said a little breathlessly, the colour high on his cheeks.

Magnus couldn't resist bracing the heels of both palms on the counter, showing off his nicely-defined arms from under the rolled-up sleeves of his t-shirt. "How can I be of service to you today, Mr President?" he asked, grinning. 

"I- uh..." If possible, Alec looked even more flustered. "Do you, um, come here often?" he blurted out. 

"Well, I do work here," Magnus replied, trying not to laugh. "So if you want me, you know where to find me."

Alec let out an incomprehensible noise in response, sounding a little like someone had punched him in the gut, and someone behind him cleared their throat impatiently. Alec glanced back at the very long queue behind him waiting to order and awkwardly stepped aside without ordering anything.

Isabelle was shaking her head at Alec in fond exasperation and had her back towards the door that led to the kitchen, so she didn't see Clary pushing open the door with her butt since her hands were full with piping hot muffin trays. Clary turned around and let out a yelp when she saw Isabelle, almost dropping both trays. Isabelle spun around and reached out to help Clary steady the trays on instinct, but she wasn't wearing oven mitts and immediately winced in pain, drawing her hands back quickly.

"Izzy! Are you alright?" Clary gasped. 

Isabelle had her eyes squeezed shut, but after a few moments she opened her eyes and smiled at Clary. "Perfectly fine. See?" She showed Clary her hands, which weren't even red. Magnus frowned; for a moment there, he thought Isabelle's eyes had looked a bit strange, but it must have just been a trick of the light. 

With all the customers to attend to, Magnus didn't get a chance to speak to Alec again before he disappeared with his sister, which was a little disappointing - he hadn't even tried to ask Magnus for his number. After the shop had closed and Magnus was sweeping up while absently plotting how he might find a way to "accidentally" bump into Alec Lightwood, perhaps at a less crowded location where they could actually have a proper conversation, he paused in front of one of the picture frames hanging on the wall and followed the instinct to look behind it. There was a small red cloth bag wedged between the frame and the wall, and Magnus dropped it in revulsion after he'd extracted it - the thing, whatever it was, seemed to have a heartbeat. He forced himself to pick it up again, and shook out the contents onto a nearby table. There was a twig broken into four pieces, a piece of blackened iron, dried leaves that Magnus thought he recognised as sage, and some small, light bones that looked like they might belong to a bird. 

"Magnus? What's that?" Clary asked, coming up to him, then stifled a gasp when she saw what was in his hand. "Oh! That's mine."

"Yours?" Magnus asked dubiously.

"Yes. Just, um, superstitious nonsense. My mom is into this stuff," Clary replied. 

Magnus put the stuff back into the bag and handed it over to her. It had made him uncomfortable to handle it, although he couldn't quite put a finger on why, but it didn't feel like it was meant to cause harm.

"Biscuit, you know the Lightwoods, right? Would you happen to have Alec's number?"

"Oh. Are you interested in Alec?" Clary asked.

Magnus shrugged. "It seemed like the interest was mutual. I could be wrong. But I'm not exactly the shy sort, so I thought I'd find out."

Clary chewed on her lower lip, shaking her head. "I'm not sure he's your type. He's got a lot of responsibilities, and he's under a lot of pressure from his family."

"Are you afraid that I'm going to break his heart, or that he's going to break mine?" Magnus asked jokingly.  

"Worse. Trust me, you don't want to get involved," Clary said, her eyes wide and earnest. "Anyway, I don't have his number, we didn't exactly have cellphones when we were kids."

Magnus thought she was probably lying, but he let it drop. If anything, Clary's warning was making him more intrigued about Alec and his family. What in the world could a perfectly normal guy like Alec do to him that would be worse than breaking his heart, and was Clary speaking from personal experience from her relationship with Isabelle? Curious and curiouser. 

Magnus was interviewing for a second part-time job as a hospital scribe at the campus hospital next week, and with the hours he was already putting in at Coffeen Brew and time he had to set aside for actual studying, he hadn't really thought about dating. But there was just something about Alec Lightwood that Magnus couldn't let go of. 

Besides, Magnus did love a challenge. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I've been so slow with updates for this one, I've been a little busy recently, but I'll try to get back on track! Probably going to alternate weekly postings between this and "take it easy" (the other WIP I'm writing).


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

It was like someone had flipped a switch on the weather; the day after Alec Lightwood walked into the Coffeen Brew dawned gloomy and grey, and when it started pouring before Magnus could even get dressed, he decided to skip his classes altogether in favour of catching up on his assignments and course reading. Magnus was taking a short break from assignments to play with Chairman when there was a knock on the door.

"Magnus? Are you ok?" Catarina called out, before popping her head in. 

"Yes, wasn't missing anything important today. I'll still be going in to Raph's later," he replied as Catarina and Dot came in. 

"Why do you have a shelf full of apples up here? We're going to get rats!" Catarina scolded. 

"It's alright, Chairman Meow is a mighty hunter, and he will slay them all. Isn't that right, Chairman?" Magnus said, making kissy faces at the cat. 

" _Magnus_." 

"I'm only joking. I'll throw them away," Magnus said, grinning. "An old lady near Raph's shop has taken a shine to me and keeps giving them to me when she thinks I look like I need feeding or something, and I don't have the heart to tell her to stop." 

"Then why don't you just eat them?" Dot asked.

Magnus made a face and shrugged. If there was one lesson that his mother had drummed into him from a very early age, it was never to mess with ghosts and demons. They could seem friendly or harmless, but creatures from the other realms, be it heaven or hell, were so far removed from human logic that you could never predict what they would do, and the spirits of those who had died and should have been at rest had already forgotten most of what it was like to be human and how fragile the living could be. They might not have had malicious intentions, but just being around them too much could make a living creature ill. It didn't help that Magnus was especially sensitive to them, and they were always drawn to him; the way that his mother had tried to explain it to him, spirits always wanted to talk to him because there wasn't any point trying to talk to someone who couldn't hear them, was there?

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't tried to use his talent to summon his mother's spirit after her death, but she had not appeared. Whether that was because she had already moved on, far beyond even the reach of Magnus' powers, or because she had simply decided not to show herself to him was unclear.

"So, a little bird told me that our esteemed student government president tried to chat you up yesterday," Dot said with a grin. 

"Oh my god. Please don't tell me Simon tweeted about it," Magnus said with a frown, and Dot let out a delighted gasp. 

"So it's true! Simon didn't tweet about it, but a lot of people did. You have no idea how many hearts were broken when Alec Lightwood came out as gay before the summer," Dot replied. 

"He gave you his number?" Catarina asked.  

"No, he just came up to say 'hi' and blushed a lot. But he's cute," Magnus admitted. 

"He seems like a nice guy. You should ask him out as your date to the Halloween night parade," Catarina suggested with a smile. 

Magnus wrinkled his nose. "Walking around Salem town visiting all the so-called haunted places isn't exactly my idea of a romantic date. Besides, Halloween is ages away." He'd seen the flyers around campus of course, but to be honest, he'd been thinking of skipping it altogether and taking on another shift at Raphael's so the rest could go and enjoy the festivities, although that was before Alec had come into the picture. 

"Magnus, this is Salem. The Halloween night parade is the biggest party of the year!" Dot said with a laugh. "And of course you'll need to ask him early, because you'll need to coordinate your Halloween costumes."

Magnus snorted. "And what exactly do you do for date night in Salem on Halloween?" 

"Well, there's a 4D show on Gallows Hill and lots of really good haunted houses, which are always a good excuse to hold on a little tighter to your date. And there's usually a concert in the town square where the night bazaar is, and the bands are pretty good," Dot said, counting them off on her fingers. "Oh! And there's the haunted footsteps audio tour, that's super creepy and leaves you to explore all the cemeteries and the Hawthorne Hotel on your own - and if you want to slip away, there are lots of dark places to do dark deeds, if you know what I mean."

Magnus didn't even know how to explain to her that while he wasn't opposed to a little exhibitionism, the invisible audience that only he would be able to see while making out in a graveyard would be an instant mood killer. 

But Catarina immediately sensed his discomfort, and she'd been friends with him for long enough to know that he found talk about ghosts and spirits disturbing. "The first year that I was here, we took the harbour cruise together. Salem by night can be really beautiful," she suggested. "There's a family-friendly film screening on Salem Commons and the parade and night bazaar are always lovely, too - like a fun fair."

"Oh, yes! Every year I set up a table doing tarot readings at the fair on Essex Street, you should drop by with Alec to have your fortune read, I've been told that I'm uncannily accurate. I'll be sure to bring out all the cards about love and wedding bells," Dot said with a wink. 

"I think that's probably going to scare him off, we've only just met," Magnus said wryly. He picked the Chairman off his lap to settle it on the floor, and the cat meowed in protest. "I'd better get back to my assignments. I'll think about that Halloween party."

Despite the hard sell from Dot, Magnus hadn't really seen the appeal. Halloween in New York City honestly hadn't been all that different from any other day when it came to supernatural activity, but things might be different in a place like Salem, if enough people believed in it to make the festival extra potent, and it might be safer to stick to familiar places. Besides, Raphael might need all hands on deck, if it was going to be such a big thing.

  

\--

 

"I'm not going to pretend to date Magnus just so we can keep an eye on him," Alec growled. 

"Ok, then don't pretend to date him, and _really_ date him," Jace suggested with a grin.

Alec narrowed his eyes at him. "Jace, we've talked about this. Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I'm interested in every guy I meet, just as it doesn't mean that you want to get with every girl you meet," Alec said. The fact that he  _did_ in fact find Magnus very attractive was beside the point. 

"That might have been a bad example to give, I'm pretty sure Jace _does_ want to get with every girl he meets," Izzy observed.

"Hey!" Jace protested, throwing his empty soda can at her, but Izzy flicked it away casually before it could even touch her. 

" _Jesus!_ Not in public!" Alec hissed, glancing around the crowded cafeteria to see if the clatter of the can had been loud enough to break through the little see-me-not spell they used when they wanted to have a private conversation in a public place, since the spell only discouraged people outside the perimeters of the spell from paying attention to them. He probably needn't have worried; it was raining cats and dogs outside, so everyone was trapped indoors for lunch and the volume of chatter and noise generated by a hundred college students absorbed in their own conversations would have masked anything.

" _Izzy_ should go and hang out in that coffee shop instead," Jace said. "Just ask Clary out properly, and you'll have every excuse to be there every day." 

"Don't you think I want to?" Izzy said unhappily. "You know what our parents said."

"What, because the descendants from the five families aren't supposed to get together, convergence of bloodlines, bad enough that Maryse married Robert, blah blah?" Jace said. "Well, screw them. Just adopt a bunch of gifted kids to make up for it."

"Easy for you to say," Izzy said sourly, and threw her soda can at Jace.

"Enough, you two," Alec huffed in exasperation. 

"What's the deal with this Magnus guy anyway?" Jace asked, crumpling his sandwich wrapper. "He's definitely got the mojo, but we still don't know what his intentions are?"

"Well, magic isn't inherently good or bad. But I think he's a natural, and to be honest I'm not even sure he knows what he's doing - it just that when you get up close, it feels like the magic is all around him, you know?" Izzy said.

"Wild card," Jace muttered.

"Exactly. But what are we going to do about that? We don't want him to get Reaped, but there's no way the rest will leave him alone when they find him. He's either with us, or against us," Izzy pointed out.

"Hey guys, what's with the thing?" Jonathan asked suspiciously, gesturing at the protective spell as he approached them. "What are you guys up to?" 

"Oh, we were just talking about the cute guy Alec bumped into!" Izzy replied brightly.

"You mean the new guy at the coffee place Clary's working at?" Jonathan said, putting his lunch tray down and sitting down on one of the spare chairs around their table. "I heard about that."

Alec frowned. "What? How?" 

"Because it was all over twitter? C'mon, even _I'm_ not that out of the loop," Jonathan said with some amusement. "So did he give you his number or what?" 

"Not yet, which was why we were talking about how to get Alec here a date with his new man," Jace said, clapping Alec harder on the back than was necessary - as if Alec was stupid enough to mess up their cover story. Alec resisted the urge to give Jace a kick in the shin under the table.

"I've seen him around campus with Clary. He's got the gift, doesn't he?" Jonathan said, chewing on a fry. "Well, if he says 'no', we'll put him up for the Reaping."

"What the fuck? No!" Alec snapped. 

"Alec, you're like a brother to me. The blood of the five stick together. If he hurts you, then he had it coming," Jonathan said matter-of-factly, and what really freaked Alec out about it was that this was the sort of talk they'd grown up with as children. Then Jonathan added a little too casually, "Besides, he's just some random guy. It's not like the Lightwoods are planning on not putting anyone up for the Reaping, right?"

"But not _this_ guy. I think this guy is special," Jace said, nudging Alec. "Right, bro?"

"Yeah, sure," Alec mumbled, already hating where this was going. 

"Do you need, like, wingmen? We could all go," Jonathan said a little hopefully, as if he hadn't also just suggested that they could offer Magnus up as a sacrifice to a demon if he rejected Alec.

"I can ask a guy out on my own, I'm not completely hopeless," Alec said flatly.

"That's the spirit! Go get 'im, tiger," Jace said with a mischievous grin, and this time Alec did kick him under the table. 

"Aren't you two late for class?" Izzy said. 

Alec nodded, grateful for the excuse to leave, and pecked Izzy on the cheek before he went off with Jace. 

"Are you  _sure_ you don't need a wingman?" Jace asked, and Alec knew that Izzy had told Jace what a disaster his first meeting with Magnus had been. 

"Fuck off," Alec muttered. As if he needed all these additional complications on top of the conflicted feelings he had that the first guy he was having a solid crush on since he'd come out just happened to also be a powerful witch - as if no matter how hard he tried to run, the magic always found its way back to him. 

"Hey man, it's going to be fine. It's not like we're asking you to marry him. Just go on a few dates so you can get him alone, try to figure out what his deal is," Jace said, slinging an arm over Alec's shoulders. "And if he tries any funny business, me and Izzy will be right there."

"Great, chaperones, just what I needed," Alec grumbled, and shook his head. "I've got a plan, just leave me to it."

All he needed to do was get Magnus alone and cast a suggestion charm that he should get the hell out of Salem, and while it would probably mess up Magnus' life to have to move away, it was better to be inconvenienced than dead. Just get him out of the picture altogether, that would be the end of it. How hard could that be? 

 

\--

  

The rain had finally slowed to a drizzle when Magnus was ready to head home from Coffeen Brew, and he was thankful for it because his umbrella had been completely useless in the afternoon. The door to Raphael's shop had barely closed behind him when he had a feeling that there was someone watching him from the shadows near a thick grove of trees - but a living, breathing someone, rather than a spirit.  

Magnus frowned and squinted into the darkness, already braced to defend himself, when the figure stepped out of the shelter of the trees. 

"Alec? What are you doing here?" Magnus asked, the tension going out of his shoulders. 

For a moment Alec looked a little uncertain, then he clenched his jaw with resolve. "I'm sorry that I left so suddenly yesterday, there were just too many people. Do you want to go for a drive?" 

It sounded less like Alec was asking Magnus out on a date and more like he was going to bring Magnus somewhere quiet to shoot him in the back of his head. Alec was trying very hard to hide it but Magnus could tell that he was extremely tense, far more than just natural nervousness from asking someone out, and he couldn't seem to meet Magnus' eyes - the whole thing just felt wrong. Clary's warning came back to him then, and Magnus' first instinct was to make some excuse about being tired and having early classes, but Alec was obviously a bit shy, and Magnus didn't want to risk discouraging him with a rejection. 

"Are you asking if you can give me a ride in your car, or a  _ride_ in your car? Because I'm not that kind of boy, you know," he joked.

Alec clearly wasn't expecting that response, and started sputtering adorably. "No! I really just meant a drive. I didn't mean-"

"Relax. I was just teasing."

Magnus walked towards Alec and lifted his umbrella a little higher so that both of them were under its shelter. Alec glanced up at the umbrella, then looked back down at Magnus, and Magnus didn't even realise that Alec had been holding his breath until he let it all out in a soft whoosh, a bit of colour rising in his cheeks. There was a streetlight a few feet away, but between the gentle rain falling around them and the shade of the umbrella, there wasn't much light to see by. Even then, Alec's lovely hazel eyes were almost luminous in the gloom. 

"Your car or mine?" Magnus asked coyly, and at least that got a huff of laughter out of Alec. _There we go._

"My car is just around the corner," Alec said.

"Lead the way," Magnus replied with a smile. 

 

 

Magnus had been expecting Alec to bring him to a 24-hour diner or something similar, the kind of safe and casual dating spots frequented by college students. Instead, Alec took them on a winding route that thankfully avoided all the cemeteries and historical places, to a dark and completely isolated park on an island connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway, and he was seriously giving Magnus serial-killer vibes again. 

Magnus walked side by side with Alec down the slippery leaf-strewn paths in relative silence, quite certain that he was going to get murdered because of his weakness for a pretty face, and when they eventually emerged from the densely wooded path, Alec led the way down a thin finger of concrete, a breakwater that stretched out towards a lighthouse standing over a rocky beach. The wind blowing over the ocean was freezing, and Magnus' jacket wasn't nearly thick enough, but he wrapped it around him a little tighter and didn't complain when Alec sat down on a wet bench about midway to the lighthouse. 

"You're new in town, right? Alec asked. "Where're you from?"

"New York," Magnus replied. His teeth were already chattering, but Alec seemed completely unaffected by the cold even though he was still damp from the rain, his fringe curling a little on his forehead as it dried.

"What? And you decided to move to _Salem_ of all places?" Alec asked incredulously.

Magnus shrugged. "My friends are here. I practically grew up with Cat and Ragnor."

"But you've probably got tonnes of other friends back home, right? And parents, siblings," Alec said, and for some strange reason, he sounded relieved. "Besides, you're pre-med. There're plenty of better colleges for that than Salem State."

"How dare you suggest that, Mr President?" Magnus said, trying for a light-hearted tone but missing by a mile. He looked out at the boats anchored in Salem Harbour, little dots of light on the dark water. "I have no one back in New York. My mother was murdered a few months ago."

"Shit. I'm so sorry."

Magnus looked down at his hands, picking at his peeling nail polish. "I walked her home from work almost every night, but it was finals week and my mom said not to bother."

"You couldn't have known. It wasn't your fault," Alec said immediately.

Magnus didn't answer. Alec didn't know anything about him or what he could do - when it came down to it, neither did Magnus, because he hadn't bothered learning. Maybe if he had spent more time practicing, he'd have had that bad feeling in his gut that something had gone wrong a little earlier, before his mother had actually been stabbed. Maybe he'd have had a vision of the future and known what was coming. 

Magnus gave himself a little shake. "Well, enough about me. What about you? Has your family always lived in Salem?" 

"Danvers," Alec replied brusquely, and abruptly got up from the bench. "Do you mind if we go back? It's a long drive back home for me."

Alec was quiet on the drive back, so deep in thought that he barely responded to Magnus' attempts to start a conversation. Even though he'd been the one to ask Magnus out, Alec now seemed like he couldn't wait to get rid of Magnus. He dropped Magnus off right outside the gate and zoomed off in his fancy black car without even saying goodbye, leaving Magnus standing at the curb in total confusion. 

"What was that about?" Magnus muttered as he watched Alec's car turn round the corner, going out of sight.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

Alec knew that he had lost his window of opportunity when he hadn't cast the suggestion spell on Magnus when he'd had him alone, and he'd regretted it a little before he was a block away, but it was too late. There was no way Magnus would go out on another "date" with him, so Alec had to come up with another plan eventually because the fact remained that Magnus was in danger, and the longer Alec selfishly put it off, the greater the chances of Magnus being offered for the Reaping by someone else. Thankfully, nobody had witnessed him approaching Magnus this time, and Magnus had been nice enough not to go around telling everyone what an asshole Alec had been, so the rumour mill was mostly quiet. For a few days after the "date", Alec kept his head down and holed up in the student government office when he wasn't in class, concentrating on normal, mundane things like assignments and the topics he needed to table at the next meeting with the school administration. 

The only warning he got that he would be forced to make a decision soon was the mood Jonathan was in when he got into Alec's car in the morning when Alec made his rounds to pick everyone up.

"Why did nobody tell me that this Magnus guy was fucking _overflowing_ with magic?" Jonathan demanded without any preamble. "I was hanging out across the street from the coffee shop Clary works at to check on her, and it was so strong he could have been one of us. He's dangerous." 

"Jonathan, you didn't put him up for the Reaping, right?" Alec asked urgently, turning around to look at him. 

Jonathan scowled at him. "Not yet. But my mom wanted to know if I'd seen any potential gifted around campus, I can't hide this from her forever. I know you said you wanted to ask him out, but you haven't even been on a date with him. I think you should just forget about him."

"Actually, I've been going out with him for a few days now," Alec said quickly. "It's just that we've been keeping things quiet. Jonathan, I'm serious about him."

"And you're cute together!" Izzy chimed in. "Since Magnus is with Alec, that's one way to deal with him. Make him part of the family, you know." 

"What, like my dad? My mom marrying him didn't stop him from turning on us," Jonathan pointed out.

"Magnus is different, he's nothing like Valentine. He doesn't even know how to use his magic," Alec insisted. "Jonathan, I need some time to ease him in. I don't want to freak him out with the whole covenant thing so soon." 

Jonathan hesitated, then nodded. "Ok, I've got your back. I'll make sure my mom leaves him alone." 

At least Jace'd had the sense to wait until they were at school and Jonathan was out of earshot before rounding on Alec. "You asshole, why did you tell Izzy but not me that you were together with Magnus now?" Jace exclaimed.

Alec sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Because I'm not."

"Did something happen the other night when you had to sneak in after midnight?" Izzy asked shrewdly.

"I was going to cast a spell to force him to leave Salem but I couldn't bring myself to do it," Alec admitted. "He just seems like a normal guy, trying to live his life. I don't want to drag him into this mess."

Izzy put her arm around her brother's waist and gave him a squeeze. "Well, I don't think he's going to complain about getting a few dates with you. In case you haven't noticed, big brother, you're quite the catch."

Alec snorted. Yeah, because it was everyone's dream to have a boyfriend who had been born into a homicidal demon-worshipping cult.

"Besides, it's only for a month, until the Reaping is over. Even if you're not really interested in him, just treat this as dating practice," Jace said bracingly. 

"Sure. Dating practice," Alec muttered, while Izzy looked at him worriedly. 

 

\--

 

Magnus hadn't seen hide or hair of Alec Lightwood for days, and he'd decided that he wanted to keep it that way. After a good night's sleep, Magnus had come to the conclusion that Alec had been expecting something from him that Magnus hadn't offered - on hindsight, Alec taking him to somewhere dark and isolated made a bit more sense if Magnus' joke about Alec wanting to give him a "ride" hadn't been that far off the mark after all. It was too bad, but maybe Catarina's judgement had been wrong this time, and Alec wasn't a very nice guy. 

And apparently Alec had a thicker hide than Magnus had given him credit for, because he'd had the audacity to turn up at the Coffeen Brew again a few days later when Magnus was on his way home. Magnus rolled his eyes when he saw Alec lurking in the shadows of the trees again and kept on walking.

"Magnus! Wait!"

"What do you want this time, Lightwood?" Magnus asked, putting on the most disinterested tone he could manage, and Alec's face fell. 

"Magnus, I'm sorry." 

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry too," Magnus bit out.

Alec immediately moved to block his way, and didn't budge even when Magnus glared at him. 

"I know I behaved like an asshole the other night, and I'm giving off a lot of mixed signals," Alec said. "It's just... it's all very new for me."

Magnus crossed his arms and scowled. Alec was still giving him a kicked-puppy expression, and Magnus remembered that Alec had come out quite recently. He could sympathise with that - figuring out how dating worked was hard enough, and harder when you'd spent most of your life denying who you really were. Plus, Alec looked so earnest in his frustration at not being able to find the words to explain himself, and Magnus could feel his resolve weakening. Damn it. 

"Alright, I'm listening," Magnus finally said.

Alec's jaw dropped, like he didn't believe his luck, but he recovered quickly. "Let me take you out again. One more chance. Please."

"And what, you're going to take me to the lighthouse again?"

"Um, if you don't like that, we can go somewhere else."

Magnus frowned. If Alec wanted to bring him there again, maybe the lighthouse meant something to Alec, more than just a secluded place to make out. 

"Wait for me here," Magnus said, then turned and went back to the Coffeen Brew. 

Raphael was sitting at a table doing the accounts and Clary and Simon were still cleaning up, and all of them looked up in surprise.

"Did you leave something behind?" Clary asked. 

"My common sense, apparently," Magnus said as he moved behind the counter to grab some milk, sugar, and cocoa.

"What happened?" Clary asked. 

"Alec is asking me to go out with him. He's waiting outside," Magnus replied as he put the steaming wand in a pitcher of milk. 

"Oh gosh! Have fun, man," Simon said, beaming.

"If I don't turn up tomorrow, just assume that Alec murdered me and call the cops," Magnus muttered.

Simon's smile faltered. "Uh, is that likely to be a thing?" 

Magnus sighed. "I don't know. And don't you dare tweet about this, Simon." 

Within a few minutes, Magnus had two cups of hot chocolate in to-go cups. "Raph, put this on my tab, ok?" 

Raphael snorted and waved him away. "Just go, and try not to get murdered. I don't have the time to sort through job applicants again."

"Magnus, please be careful," Clary said, nervously picking at her apron. 

"Why is everyone behaving like Magnus is going out with a psycho axe murderer instead of our student government president?" Simon asked in bewilderment as Magnus stepped out of the shop. 

Alec was still standing where Magnus had left him, and he looked a little bit surprised when he saw Magnus, as if he hadn't expected Magnus to come out of the shop.

Magnus handed him one of the cups. "Just so you know, I told the rest of them where I was going and who I was going out with, so don't even think of trying any funny business."

"I- what? No, no funny business, I promise," Alec said very seriously.

"Yes, that's really convincing," Magnus said wryly. "Let's just go before our hot chocolate goes cold."

 

 

At least it wasn't raining this time, Magnus thought, as Alec led the way to the lighthouse. The wind was still fucking freezing, but the hot chocolate was helping, and all the boats on the water _were_ very pretty. They sat down on the same bench as they had the last time, sipping their drinks. 

"I come here when I need some time alone, away from my siblings and just... all of that," Alec suddenly said, breaking the silence. "When I was a kid, sometimes I'd pretend that I could just jump on one of those boats out there and sail away, leave everything behind."

It sounded like there was a lot to unpack there, but Magnus didn't know Alec well enough to know where to start. "I don't blame you. I've been here for less than two months and I'm sick of pointy hats and broomsticks," Magnus joked. "Have you never been away from here? Even for a family holiday or something like that?"

Alec shook his head.

"Well, we're still young," Magnus said. "Besides, Boston is just a train ride away. Surely your parents can't object to half a day out of town."

Alec shrugged. "Maybe. It's actually just my mom now, my dad died of a heart attack a few years ago. But she worries." Alec's eyes widened slightly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bring back bad memories." 

Magnus flashed him a small smile and shook his head. "It's fine, I'm glad that you're close to your mom too."

Alec tried to shift the conversation towards more neutral topics - about how Magnus had become friends with Ragnor and Cat, and about Magnus accidentally adopting Chairman because he used to feed it and it had decided the way cats do that Magnus was its person now, but it always drifted back to Magnus' mom because she'd been such an important part of his life, and Magnus found that he didn't mind. It was nice to remember the good times too, and maybe it was just easier to talk about it to Alec because he didn't know that a certain topic would be a minefield of memories. 

"Shit, it's almost sunrise," Alec said. "I didn't mean to keep you up all night."

Magnus looked behind him in surprise, and sure enough he could see a faint lightening of the sky in the horizon. "You're welcome to keep me up all night anytime," he purred, making his voice low and a little husky, and laughed when Alec's cheeks turned pink. "Lucky for me I don't have any classes in the morning. You?" 

"I do, but it's ok. I'll send you home first, and I'll probably be able to grab about an hour of sleep before have to give Izzy and the rest a lift to school," Alec said. 

This time, the drive back couldn't have felt more different. Magnus tried to convince Alec that he should sing along to whatever was playing on the radio to stay awake, and although he didn't manage to get Alec to sing, he did manage to make Alec laugh with a dramatic rendition of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

"Thanks for the ride, hot stuff," Magnus said, dropping a suggestive wink as he got out of the car.

Alec shook his head and let out an exasperated huff of laughter. "Why are you always like this?"

"Take me as I am, or watch me as I go," Magnus replied airily, wriggling his fingers at Alec and pretending not to notice that Alec was most definitely watching a certain part of Magnus' anatomy go as he picked his way through the slightly overgrown front yard. 

"Hey. Are you going in to the coffee shop later today?" Alec called out after him. 

Magnus turned, raising an eyebrow at him quizzically.

"I could give you a lift to the shop after school," Alec said. "I mean, it's my fault that your car is still back there."

"Again," Magnus teased. 

"Again," Alec agreed, and had the grace to look embarrassed at the reminder. 

"I have classes until four." 

"Ok, then I'll meet you in the parking lot outside south campus?" 

Magnus nodded, the exhilarating swoop in his chest that came with the beginnings of a new relationship bringing a smile to his face. "Sounds good." 

"See you tomorrow. I mean later," Alec said, but still he didn't close the car door. "Um, good night." 

"You'd better get going, or you're not going to get any sleep at all," Magnus said. "Good night, Alexander," 

Alec closed the door and waved at Magnus before he went off, and Magnus couldn't help noticing with some amusement that Alec was driving a lot slower than he usually did until he turned round the corner. 

 

\--

  

Unfortunately, sleep wasn't in the cards for Alec when he got home, even if his head hadn't been full of thoughts of Magnus and his heart didn't feel like it was going to float right out of his chest. He'd had to climb in through the window of his bedroom so he wouldn't wake his mom up, and he was still trying to get comfortable on his bed when Izzy barged into his room.

"Did something happen?" he asked, sitting up quickly.

"Hodge came over last night to talk to mom. I slipped Max's phone under the door to record their conversation. Listen to this bit," Izzy said, handing it over.

"That's smart," Alec said, plugging in his earbuds. Maryse and Hodge would have thought to ward the room against magical interference but wouldn't have thought of electronics, and Max was always leaving his phone lying around - Maryse had certainly nagged him about it often enough.

_"Jocelyn called a meeting between Stephen and I the other day, to ask us what we thought of the fact that of the younger ones, her Jonathan is the only one who has submitted someone for the Reaping,"_ Hodge said in the recording, his nervousness clear. _"Stephen is putting the blame on you for being a bad influence on Jace, just so you know. He claims that the boy only listens to you."_

_"I'm waiting for the official verdict on one of the court cases going on in Essex, which should be out next week. No death penalty in Massachusetts, but someone who preys on children deserves it, don't you think?"_ Maryse said.

_"I'm not talking about us, Maryse. You know why Jocelyn is focussing on your children - she suspects that they are looking for a way to break the covenant._ _I don't have children of my own, and I don't think I'll ever have any, not when this is the sort of legacy we have for them, but I've always had a soft spot for yours, and I'm telling you now that you have to do something about it."_

_"I'm not going to force my children to commit murder, I won't make them have that on their conscience,"_ Maryse said fiercely. _"This is_ our _cross to bear. My children will be free to forge their own path, to do what they think is right, and if Jocelyn has a problem with that she'll have to go through me first."_

Alec yanked the earphones out of his ears. "Jesus, no wonder Jonathan is such a fucking piece of work. At least we know Hodge is sort of on our side. It'd have sucked if he wasn't, I remember he used to babysit us when we were little."

"I'm just so _tired_ of this," Izzy exploded. "Why can't we just be normal? Or at least not have to owe our powers to a stupid demon?" 

Maybe their ancestors had made the deal partly out of fear for their lives, but some of it had definitely been greed, wanting more magic than what they had been born with. And what had three hundred years of death and destruction, and the blood of hundreds of people on their hands bought their descendants?

The five families ruled Salem, but they could never leave it. The Lightwoods and the Truebloods had traditionally managed the city council and law enforcement of the town, occasionally manipulating themselves into positions of power through a combination of magic and coercion. The Starkweathers ran the oldest and most established bank in Salem, and if Hodge never had kids the bank would likely become the responsibility of someone from the other five families. As a Herondale, Jace was set to take over the biggest real estate company in Salem, and Jonathan and Clary were expected to take over the heritage and historical commission to make sure their bloody legacy was never recorded in any history book. All their lives had been planned out for them since they were born, and they were expected to remain here - no going somewhere else for college, no travelling anywhere or seeing the rest of the world, because they were _shackled_ to this fucking secret. 

But if Alec could end this before Halloween, maybe they'd all have a shot at a normal life. Maybe they would all have no powers if the covenant was broken, or they would have just a little magic, no more than any other of the gifted who lived in Salem, but Alec was ok with that. Izzy could be with Clary, and he'd just be a normal guy, the kind of guy Magnus deserved - someone who could take him out on dates to some place that wasn't a witch-themed tourist trap, who didn't have a dark secret hanging over his head. And the sooner he ended this, the sooner he could stop pretending around Magnus, and Magnus would never have to find out.

"We need the advice of an experienced witch who isn't part of the five families," Alec said.

"Who? Magnus? But you said that he doesn't know anything," Izzy said.

Alec shook his head. "No, not Magnus. Izzy, could you get something from Clary - nail clippings, or hair?" 

Izzy frowned. "I could, but what would you need that for? Don't do anything stupid, big brother. We'll figure something out." 

Except that they'd been saying this for years now, and they were no closer to a solution now than they had been then. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Alec clenched his jaw. "I'm going to summon the ghost of Valentine Morgenstern."

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

Alec was waiting for Magnus again after work the day after, and the day after that, and Magnus began to think it was time to dig out one of his thicker jackets since the lighthouse seemed to be fast becoming "their" spot. But Alec couldn't meet the night after that because he had a quiz first thing in the morning, so Magnus surprised Alec at the student government office during his free period so they could spend a bit of time together, even if it was just to study quietly side by side; and for the first time in days, after his shift at the campus hospital, Magnus went straight home. He was exhausted but oddly restless, so he set to work throwing out the apples on his shelf like he'd promised Catarina he'd do to wind down, although he brought them downstairs to the kitchen to core them and extract the seeds first - he'd just had a feeling that they would come in useful. When he was on his way back upstairs, he noticed that the light in Ragnor's office was still on.

He popped his head into the room and found Ragnor frowning over a thick stack of papers on his desk. "Ragnor? Why are you still up?" 

"Proofreading the text for the exhibition that's going up next week," Ragnor mumbled distractedly, then looked up and frowned. "Why do I smell apples?"  

"I was just trying something out. Do you want me to help with the proofreading? I can't sleep anyway. Is it about the witch trials?" Magnus asked warily. It would be Halloween in a month, after all.

"No, it's not about the trials, I think we have quite enough of that all year round. It's about the network of smugglers' tunnels under Salem. And thank you for offering but I can manage on my own. You should try to get some rest, I'm surprised that you aren't dead on your feet by now, what with working two part-time jobs on top of your school work," Ragnor said, peering at him over the frame of his glasses. "I've been hearing you come in at odd hours for the last few nights. Is everything alright?"

"Sure. Better than alright."

Ragnor raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, I know that look. New girlfriend or boyfriend?"

Magnus shook his head, trying not to smile. "I don't think we're at that stage yet, I've only gone out a few times with Alexander." 

Ragnor snorted. "Mmm-hmm. Even the way you say his name tells me this boy is something special. Is he from around here?"

"Yes, he said his family has always lived in Danvers. His mother is the Mayor, apparently."

"You're dating Maryse Lightwood's son?" Ragnor asked with a frown.

Ragnor was the third person now, after Clary and Alec himself, who had hinted that there was something off about Alec's family, even though Alec and his sister seemed pretty well-adjusted to Magnus. "What's wrong with the Lightwoods?" Magnus asked.

"The Lightwoods are only part of it," Ragnor replied ominously. "Has he ever invited you to the family home?" 

"No. Like I said, I've only gone out with him a few times, usually after my shift at Raph's," Magnus replied.

"It's a beautiful mansion probably built some time in the late seventeenth-century, extraordinarily well-preserved, and one of five still occupied by the descendants of the original families who built the houses."

Magnus frowned. "Ok, so Alec's family has been around since the witch trials. He said they've always been in Danvers, though, not Salem." 

"Ah, but you see, while Salem Town was where the trials and executions were held, and it's popular with the tourists because of the name, it isn't where everything started," Ragnor explained. "The first cases of hysteria, when the children started behaving oddly and accusations of witchcraft were made, happened in Salem Village, which was later renamed Danvers." 

"I don't remember any Lightwoods being mentioned in relation to the trials," Magnus protested.

"No," Ragnor agreed. "And for one of the families that has been in the area for three hundred years, the Lightwoods have left very little mark on the history of Salem."

"That doesn't have to mean anything, maybe they just prefer to lay low," Magnus said, trying to shrug off the creeping sense of unease. "Not every family has noteworthy achievements that make it to the history books. Didn't you say that there are other families who have been around for a long time as well? Did they all get written about?"

"Funny you should say that," Ragnor said. "There are four other families that have been around for as long as the Lightwoods, with the same grand mansions to match, and other than the Starkweathers, who started the oldest bank in Salem, they might as well all be ghosts." 

"The Fairchilds and the Herondales," Magnus guessed. 

Ragnor looked surprised. "Are you involved with them too?" 

"They're Alec's friends. What's the fifth family?" 

"The Truebloods - that's Maryse's maiden name," Ragnor replied. "When I first moved here, I thought it would be interesting to track down the descendants of the original settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and see if they would be willing to share stories from their family history. With digital records these days, you'd think it'd be easier to find out something like that, but the city council's hard drives have an unfortunate habit of getting corrupted and specific hardcopy files appear to have gone missing. Eventually the historical commission shut down my project proposal - and the head of the board just happens to be Jocelyn Fairchild."

"Ragnor, are you trying to tell me that I'm dating one of the Salem witches?" Magnus said, putting on an exaggerated expression of horror, but Ragnor remained very serious.  

" _There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy_ ," Ragnor quoted. "I'm not sure that I believe in real magic, but I know that there're some things that seem beyond scientific explanation. I remember what your mom could do, that she used to get visitors who almost seemed to both fear and revere her."

"I'm not nearly as good as she was at that stuff," Magnus said quietly. 

If Ragnor was surprised by Magnus' admission, he didn't show it. "And your mother was the kind of woman who wouldn't have left her son without the tools to figure it out on his own. Just be careful, Magnus. It might not be witchcraft, but something isn't right." 

Magnus thought about the odd cloth bag he'd found in the Coffeen Brew that Clary had claimed was from her mother. He could believe that maybe these people were superstitious, and sometimes folk magic worked for normal people if they believed in it enough. These families could have gotten rich and powerful by nepotism or not entirely legal means that had nothing to do with magic, and he could hardly blame them for wanting to distance themselves from the bloody history of Salem. 

"Just wait until I bring him around to meet all of you. Well, I suspect that 90% of Alexander's wardrobe is black, but there's no way Alexander's a _witch_ ," Magnus said with a snort.

 

\--

  

Perhaps their parents had assumed that the middle of the woods in Ipswich was too out of the way for them to stumble upon it, and that they would have had more sense than to use magic to track down its location, but it had been surprisingly easy to find out where the remains of Valentine Morgenstern were buried. 

They had only been kids when the incident happened, so at that time they'd just been told that their uncle had gone away and wouldn't be coming back, and before Izzy had attempted to track down the grave, they'd only had a strong suspicion about the fate of Jonathan and Clary's father. They didn't know any details of Valentine's death of course, but it probably hadn't been pretty, because what he'd done had been unforgivable - using his position as Jocelyn's husband to gain access to the children of the five families and attempting to steal all their magic, even though he'd only succeeded in taking Clary's before he'd been caught. Even as the eldest of them, Alec had only been seven years old then. He didn't remember much of what had happened other than that Clary hadn't been able to come over for the play date because she was supposed to be ill, and Valentine had told them to stand in a circle around him because they were going to play a game, but their parents had stormed into the room and Hodge had whisked them all away. 

There were clear trails for hikers through the woods that charted safe pathways through the upland groves of oak, pine, and hickory, and even some that led hikers through the waterlogged hemlock and red maple swamps that could be treacherous even in daylight, but the place that Alec, Izzy, and Jace were headed for was far off the beaten path. The three of them needed no flashlights to see in the dark, and the creatures of the forest - the birds in the trees, the deer peering at them from a distance, the snakes that slithered away quickly through the undergrowth - gave them a wide berth. Izzy led the way with a dowsing rod that had a strand of Clary's hair wound around the tips and eventually they came to a spot where an enormous yew tree grew, the only marker for the pauper's grave Valentine had been buried in. Thankfully there were no magical wards around the grave, but the ground in the shade of the tree was scorched and the soil was barren of all living plants, even weeds. 

"They must have salted the earth," Izzy commented. 

"At least we know we've found the right spot," Alec said. The nights were getting cooler since they were nearing the end of the year, but it was _cold_ here, and slightly foggy. Alec could feel the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end.

Jace wrinkled his nose, rubbing his arms with his hands to warm up. "Please don't tell me we have to dig him up."

"No, just put salt and iron fillings in a circle all around the grave. Alec, help me stick these white candles in the ground," Izzy said, unpacking the supplies in her backpack and handing them out. 

When the circle of salt and iron was complete and the candles were lit, Izzy lit a bundle of dried herbs with one of the candles and walked round the grave, drawing sigils with the smouldering herbs. The pungent smoke hung in the stale air of the forest, and Jace sneezed, nearly taking out one of the candles and earning a glare from Izzy. 

"Sorry," Jace said, his voice muffled from him covering his mouth and nose with one hand. 

Izzy gestured that Alec and Jace should take their places around the circle, then took out a small jam jar from her bag that contained something that at first glance looked like a large pit from a fruit, until Alec realised that the red stuff wasn't juice but blood. Jace shivered in revulsion when Izzy extracted the bloody thing and held it firmly with three fingers while she tried to drive a two-inch-long iron nail through it. It made a horrible squelching sound, and even Alec had to try very hard not to cringe. 

"What the everloving _fuck_ is that?" Jace demanded. 

"Seagull's heart," Izzy replied, frowning in concentration, and started driving another nail through it. "Don't worry, the bird was already dead when I found it. I've had it frozen for a while now, just in case it came in handy."

"Jesus, is this what you keep in the deep freezer up in Lightwood House? Thank fuck I've never managed to get past your warding, I thought you had ice cream or something stashed in there," Jace muttered.

By the time Izzy had driven three nails straight through the organ, the blood from the bird's heart was dripping down to Izzy's elbow. "Remember, don't let him get to you," she said. "He'll probably try to trick us into breaking the circle, and a witch's ghost is more powerful than an ordinary ghost."

Alec and Jace nodded and planted their feet firmly. They were spaced too far apart for their hands to touch even if they stretched out their arms, but Izzy had assured them that it wasn't necessary.

"Valentine Morgenstern! We summon your spirit and command that you speak to us!" Izzy said, holding the seagull's heart out in front of her and speaking clearly into the quiet of the forest around them.

The temperature dropped sharply, and their breaths began to come out in white clouds. A spot in the middle of the grave began to spin and swirl, a mixture of fog and smoke seeming to gather and solidify into a humanoid form; then Alec saw that the vague shape had eyes, and its eyes were red.

" _How you children have grown_ ," the spectre said. " _Time sure flies when you're dead."_ At the last word, the ghost lunged at Izzy and she took a step back instinctively, but the flames from the candles flared up and the protective circle held. The spirit of Valentine Morgenstern withdrew and began to pace in the circle.

" _I will rip you limb from limb and burn the flesh off your bones, as your parents did to me!_ "

Izzy ignored him and brandished her gory talisman at him. "The spell that summoned you compels you to speak to us. Do you know of any spell or ritual powerful enough to kill the demon Lilith?" 

The ghost bared its teeth at her. " _Children shouldn't play with fire. Do your parents know what you are up to?_ " 

"Great, so the spell compels him to talk, but he's just going to talk about whatever the fuck he wants to. We're going to be here all night," Jace grumbled. 

"Not necessarily." Izzy smiled sweetly at the ghost and twisted one of the nails in her talisman, and to Alec's surprise, the ghost let out a howl of agony that echoed strangely through the trees. "Tell us what we want to know, and we'll let you go back to being dead."

" _A demon like Lilith cannot be killed, only banished for a time, but a demon cannot cross the veils between the worlds if it isn't summoned by ritual or the terms of a covenant. She is the most vulnerable when she materialises at moon rise on Halloween to feed on the lifeforce of the sacrifices that have been Reaped for her,_ " the spectre replied sullenly.

"And if we banish her before she finishes feeding, that'll break the covenant too," Alec observed. 

"So we'll have to let them kill thirty-three people anyway? Couldn't we summon her now and banish her?" Izzy asked.

The ghost of Valentine Morgenstern laughed. " _You could try. Even with the power of the three of you combined, you will not survive it. You might not even survive the attempt on Halloween when all witchcraft is at its peak."_

"But how do we even banish Lilith? I'm guessing that a normal banishing spell won't work on her," Jace said. 

When the ghost remained silent, Izzy twisted one of the nails again, making it scream. "Tell us how to banish Lilith!" 

" _The key to the banishment lies in the summoning. You will have to find the original spell recorded in the grimoire that belonged to your ancestors - the same book that I used to bind and take Clarissa's magic._ " 

"Wasn't that destroyed?" Alec asked with a frown.

" _Destroy the Black Book? I think the five families would rather destroy each other first_ ," the spectre said scornfully. 

"I don't suppose you'd actually know where the book is hidden, since they probably changed the hiding place after they killed you," Jace said.  

The ghost of Valentine Morgenstern smiled. " _And dead men tell no tales, unless they are summoned by foolish children. The Book is hidden in the maze of tunnels under Salem and guarded by the restless dead. The blood of the five is required to unlock the door._ " 

Izzy exchanged a look with Alec. They'd gotten some useful information from the spirit, enough to figure out what to do next, and the sooner they ended the summoning the better.  

"I release you from the spell and banish you from the circle. You didn't really deserve it, but may you rest in peace," Izzy said. 

" _Ah, Isabelle. That was a beginner's mistake_ ," the spectre said, flashing her a menacing grin. A wind rose out of nowhere, and the candles began to flicker. " _Wording is important. You should banish the spirit before you release it from your spell, especially when dealing with a spirit like me._"

Alec only noticed that the wind had disturbed the ground enough to break the circle of salt and iron when the ghost of Valentine Morgernstern lashed out and Jace went flying, landing hard and skidding several feet on the damp ground. The spirit turned to Izzy next, but Alec grabbed the bag containing the rest of the salt and iron fillings and flung a large handful of it at the spirit. The ghost flickered out of sight briefly, then materialised right in front of him and closed one ice-cold hand around his throat. Choking and struggling to breathe, Alec closed his eyes and  _pushed_ at it desperately with his magic, and luckily the ghost was repelled far enough for Alec to throw another handful of salt and iron at it. This time, Alec cast it out like a net, making the individual grains of salt and iron float around the ghost, trapping it. 

"Alec, try to hold him there!" Izzy cried out, busy doing something to the talisman. 

Alec coughed as he nodded, but it was taking quite a lot of concentration to hold the shape of it, especially when the ghost was slamming against the flimsy barrier with the full force of its supernatural strength. Thankfully Jace had picked himself up and didn't look too badly hurt. He popped his shoulder back in place with a grunt and healed it before stepping up to lend his magic to maintaining the bubble of salt and iron. 

" _Wait till I get out of this. I'll kill your sister first, and make you watch_ ," the ghost hissed, and the next blow it threw at the bubble around it nearly made both Alec and Jace stumble. 

"Iz, are you done?" Alec croaked out. 

"Done," Izzy said, approaching them with the talisman held out in front of her, now with the addition of a strand of Clary's fiery hair, stained red with blood and woven around the heads of the nails. "I bind you, Valentine Morgenstern. I bind you with blood, yours and mine."

The ghost growled, but stopped fighting the barrier Alec and Jace were holding up. 

"And now I banish you from the mortal plane," Izzy said firmly. "Go to hell."

The spirit's face twisted into a sneer as it began to dissipate like smoke. " _I look forward to the end of the reign of the Salem witches_ ," it spat out, and then it was gone. 

Jace and Alec both dropped their hands in relief. Alec put a hand on his injured throat, and in a moment the ugly purple bruises in the shape of a hand were gone and he could breathe a little easier. 

"I think that took a few years off my life," Jace gasped, slumping against the yew tree. 

"Sorry," Izzy said, obviously upset about her mistake.

There was a deep cut in the middle of her palm where she'd sliced it open for the blood needed for the second binding spell. Alec took her hand in his and healed it for her. "No, you did good. We couldn't even have summoned him without you," Alec told her, and Izzy smiled at him.  

The boys set to work clearing the place of candles and wax and breaking up what was left of the circle of salt and iron, while Izzy carefully placed the seagull's heart back inside the jam jar, to be disposed of properly later.  

"Ready to go?" she asked, absently wiping her hand on her jeans. 

"I was ready to go before we even got here," Jace joked. "I hope you guys know what he's talking about when he said there were tunnels under Salem, because that's the first time I've heard of that."

"I think I've read something about it," Alec said. 

Jace shrugged and slung an arm around Izzy's shoulders to give her a one-armed hug. "Ok, we'll arrange the field trip to the museum later. Let's get the hell out of here, this place gives me the creeps."

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

  

 

Magnus didn't get a chance to meet Alec the next day until it was almost closing time at the Coffeen Brew. Alec came in to order a drink and sat unobtrusively in a corner reading a book, and occasionally he would look up, catch Magnus' eye and smile. 

"Ok, I've had enough of you making eyes at each other. Go collect your boyfriend and get out of my sight," Raphael said, forcibly shoving Magnus away from the cash register. 

"Yeah, there aren't many people left anyway. We can handle it," Simon chimed in cheerfully.

Magnus took off his apron, popping downstairs to collect his jacket and sling bag from the employees' storage closet in the cellar before coming back up to settle down in the chair next to Alec. "Hey."

"Hey. Are you off already?" Alec said in surprise, closing his book hurriedly.

" _Salem Secret Underground_?" Magnus read off the cover of the book. "That doesn't seem like something you're reading for school."

"No, just something that looked interesting in the library," Alec said.

"Ragnor's working on an exhibition about the smugglers' tunnels, we could go when it's up next week." Magnus paused. "Or not. The museum closes pretty early."

"It's ok. I know you've got a lot of stuff going on," Alec said. 

It was part of the reason why they always ended up at the lighthouse for their dates - by the time Magnus finished his shifts at the hospital or at the coffee shop, it was past midnight and almost everything was closed except the bars. It was one thing Magnus missed about living in a big city like New York, where some shops and cafes would still be open and there'd still be things to do. Over here, the last show at the cinema was at 9pm and the only thing open at all hours was probably the convenience store at the gas station. 

"If you're interested in the tunnels, I could ask him to suggest other reading material. Ragnor's a very thorough researcher," Magnus said, then added impulsively, "In fact, why don't you come back with me to my place? Ragnor might still be up working on it."

"I don't want to be a bother," Alec said, licking his lips a little nervously. He was practically broadcasting his thoughts on his face - the lighthouse was secluded, but it was still a public place. Magnus' place was a different matter altogether - even though Magnus was sharing the house with friends, they could have some modicum of privacy, if they wished. They'd only gone on a few dates together and they hadn't even held hands, but...

"You could meet the Chairman," Magnus suggested, then smiled mischievously. "And after that we could watch Netflix and chill."

Alec went a bit pink but rolled his eyes at him. "I'm just surprised you didn't make some bad joke about exploring tunnels." 

Magnus laughed in delight. "Oh, Alexander. I see I've been a bad influence on you." 

"Or maybe there's just more to me that you haven't seen yet," Alec countered awkwardly, and it was a very adorable attempt at flirting back but Ragnor's wild theory was nagging at the back of Magnus' mind. 

"I certainly wouldn't be opposed to seeing the parts of you that I haven't seen yet," Magnus replied, trying to hide his disquiet with a wink and a smile. "Let's go, before Raphael throws something at us."

 

 

Ragnor was still awake when Alec's car rolled up outside the house - awake, and furious. Magnus could hear him slamming things around in his office and muttering to himself. Catarina and Dot were sitting in the living room trying to stop Chairman Meow from "helping" them sort through cardboard boxes of orange and black tinsel streamers, fairy lights, and pieces of plastic skeletons. The TV was on but the volume was turned low, and they were obviously trying to be as quiet as they could so they wouldn't set Ragnor off, but their frowns turned into smiles when they saw Alec walk in behind Magnus.  

"Alec! This is a nice surprise," Catarina greeted him warmly, and Dot waved at him as well. The Chairman just stared warily at Alec, crouching low between the two girls.

"Is everything ok?" Magnus asked, gesturing at Ragnor's office.

"The town's historical commission withdrew the approval for the exhibition he was working on at the last minute," Catarina explained in an undertone. 

"Maybe I should go," Alec said. 

"No, don't. Let me go talk to Ragnor, and if you want we can always go to the lighthouse later," Magnus said. 

"You could help us sort out our Halloween decorations," Dot suggested with a winning smile at Alec. "In fact, you could probably help us get started on the roof." 

"Don't you dare bully Alec into climbing ladders out there in the dark," Magnus warned her. The Chairman leapt off the couch, giving Alec a wide berth, and trailed after Magnus as he went to knock on Ragnor's door, meowing askance at him for bringing a stranger home.

"I'm sorry, I just heard about the exhibition. Are you alright?" Magnus said when Ragnor finally flung the door open.  

Ragnor harrumphed. "Just another day dealing with Jocelyn Fairchild's crusade against letting anybody know anything significant about the history of Salem. I saw a black car stop outside. Is that Alec Lightwood's?" 

Magnus nodded, scooping the fussing cat up in his arms. "Funnily enough, Alec was just reading a book about the tunnels, which is why I brought him back - to meet you."

Ragnor raised an eyebrow. "Oh? So Jocelyn Fairchild doesn't agree with sharing knowledge even with the children from one of those special families? Where is he? Let me see if he can prove himself a worthy candidate for receiving the fruits of my scholarship." 

They went out to the living room to find Alec dutifully untangling fairy lights and looking slightly harassed, while Dot's eyes were twinkling with devilish glee. 

"Don't look at me like that, we were just talking - about how maybe we could try to get Isabelle and Clary together," Dot said innocently. "Right, Alec?" 

Alec didn't even get a chance to reply, because Ragnor went straight up to him with a stern expression on his face, and asked him, "So what are your intentions with Magnus?" 

All of a sudden, even Catarina and Dot were looking intently at Alec with severe expressions that could possibly be interpreted as slightly hostile. Alec was obviously taken aback and looked around uncertainly at all of them. 

"I hope you didn't think you could just swan in here and take advantage of Magnus," Ragnor said. 

"No, sir. I wouldn't," Alec replied, looking so earnest that he might have been asking Ragnor for his permission to have Magnus' hand in marriage. 

"Pity, I don't think Magnus would have any complaints about you taking advantage of him," Dot couldn't resist quipping, and both Ragnor and Catarina snorted with laughter, dropping the act. The Chairman meowed its protest at the sudden volume of their laughter - at least his cat was on his side. 

"Could you _not_ try to scare him away?" Magnus told his friends crossly. To Alec, he said, "You don't have to call Ragnor 'sir', he's barely ten years older than you. He just wears old-people dressing gowns and he's balding prematurely." 

Ragnor let out an affronted gasp. "How quickly you turn on your oldest friend, all for the sake of your new boyfriend!" 

"Just telling it like it is, mon petit chou," Magnus shot back, and stuck his tongue out at him. 

"Don't mind us, this is just the way we are when we're all together," Catarina told Alec, still chuckling. "You'll get used to our nonsense." 

"Well, Alec, I will lend you my research material on the tunnels of Salem, but only if you promise to use them for the most nefarious purpose you can come up with, and do your utmost to piss Jocelyn Fairchild off," Ragnor declared imperiously. 

"I can do that," Alec answered gamely. 

Ragnor went back to his office to grab a stack of papers, which he dumped unceremoniously into Alec's arms, then announced that he was going to bed. Magnus and Alec loaded the papers safely in Alec's car, and when they went back into the house, Magnus shot Catarina a grateful look when she clapped a hand over Dot's mouth to stop her from wolf-whistling when Magnus brought Alec upstairs to his room.

 

  

"Well, this is it," Magnus said, gesturing expansively at his room.

It was only slightly messy - some clothes on the bed from when Magnus had been trying to work out his outfit for the day this morning, and a teetering stack of secondhand textbooks on the floor next to the desk. The Chairman had been lingering around the boxes downstairs, feigning disinterest, but streaked into the room just before Magnus shut the door. Alec glanced around curiously while Magnus quickly replaced his clothes in the wardrobe. 

"I'm sorry, the Chairman is usually pretty friendly. I don't know what's gotten into him," Magnus apologised as the feline settled on top of the desk, back turned towards them and pretending that it wasn't watching them out of the corner of its eye, its tail swishing in agitation.

"Animals don't like me much," Alec admitted a little sadly.

"Why? You give off serial killer vibes to them too?" Magnus joked.

"Huh?" 

"Never mind. Let's go out on the roof," Magnus suggested, pushing his window open.

It was a bit of a squeeze but they managed to clamber out onto the garage roof just outside Magnus' window, a flat rectangle that provided just enough space for both of them to lie side by side. The overgrown trees in the neighbour's garden shielded them from prying eyes, and Magnus had to admit that there was one thing the sleepy town of Salem had on New York City - he had never seen so many stars before in the night sky.   

"Do you know anything about constellations?" Magnus asked.

"No, that's more Izzy's thing. You?" 

"A bit," Magnus said, and pointed one out. "That's the Big Spatula." 

Alec frowned. "Don't you mean the Big Dipper?"

"Nope. The Big Spatula. And that one over there is Pikachu."

Alec snorted. 

"It is! Look, there's even a pokeball right next to it-" 

Alec cracked up and nudged Magnus in the ribs with his elbow, but that just spurred Magnus to make up increasingly ridiculous constellations until they were both laughing so hard that their bellies ached and there were tears in their eyes, and Alec had to grab Magnus' arm to steady him when he rolled a little too close to the edge.

"So what was Dot bugging you about?" Magnus asked when he'd finally recovered from his giggle fit. 

"She was trying to suggest matching couple costumes for us for the Halloween night parade."

Magnus could already imagine how inappropriate all her suggestions had been. "She's really into Halloween. I was wondering if it was a thing with all the Salem locals." Magnus squinted at Alec. "Are you just too embarrassed to admit that you're into witches riding broomsticks too? Or maybe in your case, handsome warlocks riding broomsticks."

"No, I'm not really into the Halloween stuff. I've never had anyone to ask out to the parade anyway," Alec said.  

Or anybody to ask him out to it. Magnus didn't really mind the witch stuff _that_ much.

"Alexander, do you want to go to the Halloween parade with me?"  

Alec looked surprised, but flashed Magnus a lopsided grin. "Yeah. I'd like that. But, um, I might have to leave early, for a family thing."

"I'm fine with that. Raphael will probably need extra help at the shop anyway," Magnus replied with a shrug. 

The hand that Alec had used to grab Magnus' arm shifted downwards to tentatively take Magnus' hand, and Alec couldn't even begin to hide the smile that lit up his face when Magnus laced their fingers together. Alec was always so serious and responsible, and Magnus felt like a part of Alec was always worrying about something or other, but in this moment he just looked happy and relaxed and unbearably innocent. His gaze darted to Magnus' lips, but he didn't do anything about it, so Magnus figured it was up to him.

"Can I kiss you?" Magnus asked him softly.

"Yeah," Alec replied quickly and a little breathlessly. 

Magnus rolled a little more on his side, still holding Alec's hand, and leaned forward, hyperaware that this was possibly Alec's first kiss. Alec's eyes fluttered shut in the moment that Magnus' lips touched his; a sweet, chaste kiss, no more than a gentle press of his lips against Alec's. But before Magnus could pull away, Alec's other hand came up to cup his cheek, and he drew Magnus closer for another kiss, slightly deeper this time, his lips soft and pliant against Magnus' but eager for more. Magnus smiled against Alec's lips and leaned in for another kiss, then another.

They stayed out there on the roof for a long while after that, and above them the stars glowed silver in the clear night sky.

 

\--

  

"Where the hell is Alec?" Jace muttered, checking the time on his phone for the hundredth time.

Izzy shook her head and pulled her jacket a little tighter around herself, feeling the cold not just from the wind and faint drizzle but also from the chill emanating from the mist that crept around the gravestones on the other side of the chain-linked fence that went round the cemetery. 

Ragnor's research had been extensive and it had taken the three of them some time to go through everything, but by far the most useful thing they'd found in the pile of stuff was a map that Ragnor had obviously pieced together himself using all the information he had been able to gather. The map showed all the known entrances and the places where the tunnels had collapsed or been destroyed when new buildings had been built, as well as places where the tunnels had been repurposed as part of the railway system, and if Ragnor was right there were miles of tunnels stretching all the way from the old lighthouse at Winter Island to almost halfway to Danvers. In the end, it had been Valentine's hint that the Black Book was guarded by the "restless dead" that had helped them narrow down the area where the Book was likely to be hidden. 

"I still don't think this is the right place. He said _restless_ dead," Izzy said.

"Just because the gravestones have the words 'rest in peace' on them doesn't mean the dead buried here are at rest, Iz," Alec said as he came towards them from around the corner. "It's got to be somewhere in Salem Town. Even if it isn't in the cemetery, there's been plenty of violent deaths around here."

"Dude, where the fuck have you been? And are you wearing lipgloss?" Jace asked in bewilderment.

"What? No," Alec said, handing out the to-go cups in his hands before surreptitiously wiping his lips. "Just went to get us coffee, that's all. Thought we'd be needing it."

Izzy smirked into her coffee cup, and Alec pretended not to notice.

They all had a physical copy of the map just in case they got separated, but Alec had planned out specific routes to explore and marked it on the map on his phone so they could use the GPS. Tonight, they were starting with the entrance at the Howard Street Cemetery, where at least one restless spirit was known to roam - Giles Corey, one of the original sacrifices made by their ancestors during the witch trials. Corey had died in an especially horrific way, by being stripped naked in public and gradually crushed to death under heavy rocks over a period of two days, and the Lightwoods were especially wary of this particular ghost - he had supposedly laid a potent curse on the town with his dying breath, and as far as they could tell, the curse had been the cause of Robert Lightwood's fatal heart attack a few years ago. 

Their footfalls seemed extra loud in the quiet of the night as they walked down the muddy dirt path through the cemetery. Just across the road, a neon bar sign was flashing blue and orange, but it could have been in an entirely different world.

"How did a bunch of rich bastards just burrow like fucking moles throughout the entire city without anybody even noticing or trying to stop them?" Jace wondered.

"Magic," Izzy replied easily. "Do you honestly think our ancestors let all this smuggling go on right under their noses without profiting from it?"

"Point," Jace conceded. "I still don't get why they'd have hidden the book in a place guarded by ghosts hostile to  _us_ , though. Why didn't they just keep it in one of the houses? It seems really dumb to leave it out here where anyone might accidentally stumble upon it, especially if it's so powerful."

"Maybe that was the point - it's too powerful in the hands of the five," Izzy replied. 

"I'll believe it when I see it," Jace scoffed, and drained his cup. "Where's the entrance to this stupid tunnel anyway, Alec?...Alec?"

Alec looked up from his phone, blinking at Jace. "What? Yeah, it's around here... somewhere." 

"Bro, are you alright? You've been really out of it," Jace said. "And why were you smiling at your phone like an idiot?"

"Nothing. I wasn't," Alec mumbled, closing his messaging app quickly before Jace could see the screen and switching back to his map. "I think it's over there. See that little hill?"

There was a mausoleum half sunken into the foot of the "hill", but they'd barely gotten within a few metres of it when the temperature around them dropped sharply.

"Fuck. We've got company," Jace muttered, his breath coming out in a white cloud.

They spotted it immediately, hovering amongst the gravestones - a nebulous shape with red eyes. Maybe it looked less like a human because it had been dead for so long, or it just wasn't as powerful as Valentine had been, but the malice radiating from it was still palpable. 

"You've both got the stuff ready?" Izzy asked in an undertone, and the boys nodded as they took out the bags Izzy had prepared for them, which contained a mixture of salt, iron fillings, powdered root of angelica, and dried flakes of motherwort.

"On three," Alec said. "One, two, run!"

The three of them made a mad dash for the entrance of the mausoleum, and behind them the spirit let out a roar of fury that seemed to be coming from a great distance. There was a name carved above the doorframe, weathered almost to illegibility - "Crowninshield", one of the families that had been in the thick of the smuggling racket in Salem back in the day. Jace broke the lock on the door without even touching it, and the door flew open with a bang. Alec flung a handful of the warding mix Izzy had prepared behind them just as they stepped over the threshold, then poured a liberal line of the mixture on the first step while Jace and Izzy moved deeper into the mausoleum, and the ghost howled in frustration outside the barrier.

"Alright, easier than we thought," Jace said. A ball of pale blue light appeared in the palm of his hand.

Alec followed Izzy and Jace down the steep steps, and the moment his foot left the lowest step, the heavy wrought iron door slammed shut and the ball of light in Jace's hand was snuffed out by the oppressive darkness. Jace tried to summon a light again, but nothing happened.

"What the hell is going on?" Jace said, starting to sound a little panicked.

"We must have triggered some sort of curse that suppresses our magic," Izzy said. "Maybe it's a protection for the Book."

"Or a trap for anybody from the five families who tries to retrieve the spellbook," Alec suggested grimly. 

Jace huffed and ran a hand through his hair. "Ok, maybe not as easy as we thought."

 

\--

  

Business at the Coffeen Brew was slow tonight, but that wasn't the only reason why Magnus was sighing, his chin resting on his palm as he idly rolled his tube of watermelon lipgloss back and forth across the countertop. Alec was busy with something tonight, and Magnus really wasn't the needy sort, but they'd been making out in Alec's car before he'd had to go and it just left him a little lonely that they'd had to say goodbye to each other when Alec had also clearly been reluctant to leave.  

Raphael snatched the tube of lipgloss off the counter and glared at Magnus. "Just go home, Magnus."

Magnus shrugged and held his hand out for his lipgloss, which Raphael slapped back into his palm, and Simon shot him a sympathetic smile as he went past with a tray of dirty mugs. 

Magnus took out his phone to check if Alec had responded to his message as he made his way downstairs to collect his bag and jacket, but he was only halfway down the steps when he heard the voices. Usually he was quite good at ignoring them, but right now they were loud and insistent, and he could have sworn that they were coming from behind a stack of crates leaning against the far wall of the cellar. Magnus frowned and flicked the light switch on, and was already standing in front of the crates when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Magnus, I wanted to- Magnus? Is something wrong?" Clary asked.

"Hmm? No, nothing's wrong," Magnus said. "You were looking for me?" 

"I know it's none of my business, but I wanted to ask you if you're serious about Alec," she said. 

"Yes, I guess so," Magnus said cautiously.

"Then I want you to have this," Clary said, holding something out to him, and Magnus immediately recognised the little cloth bag he'd found behind the picture frame. 

"Thank you for offering, but you can keep it. It makes my skin crawl," Magnus admitted. 

"Oh. But it's a protection charm," Clary protested.

"Not the kind of protection I need, surely," Magnus joked. 

But Magnus couldn't really concentrate on the conversation; the voices were too insistent. He gripped a corner of the topmost crate with one hand, the other hand steadying the stack so that they wouldn't topple, and with a hard shove he managed to move them just enough to see what was behind. To his astonishment, there was a rusty iron gate embedded in the concrete, as if there had once been a doorway there. 

"Magnus, don't touch that."

Magnus turned to look at her, surprised at her sharp tone of voice. "Why? What was this?"  

Clary seemed reluctant to answer, but finally replied, "It's one of the old entrances to the tunnels under Salem." 

Right, she was a Fairchild. She might have been estranged from her family, but she probably knew plenty of the family secrets. Magnus pretended that he'd lost interest in it and shifted the crates back, dusting off his hands before collecting his things from the closet. It was too much of a coincidence that Alec had been reading up on the tunnels, and Alec hadn't really said why he was too busy to meet Magnus after work.

"Magnus, I'm serious - leave it alone. There're bad things in the tunnels, ok?" Clary said.

"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself, Biscuit," Magnus replied with tight smile, and waved goodbye to her.

When Magnus stepped out of the Coffeen Brew, he didn't go towards the parking lot where his car was parked. Instead, he turned the collar of his jacket up against the light rain and followed the whispering under his feet down the main street, then turned down a smaller alley that led to the museum Ragnor worked at. There was a manhole cover in the middle of the alleyway marked "Drain", and unlike the fancy new ones along the historic walking trails that had an image of a sailing ship embossed on them, this one was plain and well-worn by centuries of footfalls.

It took some effort, but Magnus finally managed to lift the heavy iron cover and peered down into the damp darkness with a grimace. There were several cast iron rungs embedded in the side of the shaft to form a ladder, and he could hear water trickling far below. It had been raining lightly all day, but he doubted that there'd be enough runoff for the water level to be dangerous. Meanwhile, the volume of the whispering rose, the souls of the dead clearly agitated about something.

Against his better judgement, Magnus squared his shoulders and began to climb down into the darkness.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

 

Alec had never realised how much he relied on his magic until it was taken away from him. It wasn't just that he could no longer see in the dark, but that the cold seeped through his rain-damp clothes, and he couldn't just will it to go away. He couldn't sense the familiar shape of Izzy and Jace's magic that told him where they were, and even when they all brought out their phones to use as flashlights and he could see them standing right next to him, it didn't feel _real_. 

Jace's phone let out a warning beep and died almost immediately. "Crap. I haven't actually charged it since I bought it," Jace admitted.  

Izzy sneezed loudly, and Alec took off his coat to give to her even though he was shivering as well, and not just from the cold. Without his magic, it wasn't just that all his senses were duller, but like he had suddenly gone completely blind or deaf and lost a whole way of making sense of the world. He couldn't sense what lay ahead in the darkness of the mausoleum, and it would probably be smarter to turn back and come back when they were better prepared for the curse, but he knew even before he went back up the steps to attempt to force the door open that they wouldn't be able to go out the way they'd come in. Was the ghost of Giles Corey still outside waiting for them? Alec couldn't hear anything outside except the rain, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. It was possible that with the loss of their magic, they were completely blind to everything otherworldly.

"Let's just start looking, since we're here," Izzy said bracingly.

They went down the narrow stairs into the crypts of the Crowninshield mausoleum first, in the faint hope that it really was that simple and the Black Book was hidden here. The ceiling was so low that Alec had to hunch his shoulders, and the air inside was stale. Oddly enough, there were no human remains in the niches, and Alec wondered if the Crowninshield family had ever used this place to inter their dead; perhaps the mausoleum had always only been intended as a front. They found a couple of weed-whackers and newish gardening tools stashed in one of the niches, probably belonging to the caretaker of the cemetery, but it soon became clear that there was nothing else here but dust, cobwebs, and solid stone walls.

"Hey, look at this," Izzy called out, peering at a section of the mould-stained floor where a series of overlapping circles had been carved or hammered into the stone. "This is called a daisy wheel. They used to believe that these kept witches out."

"Well, joke's on them," Jace said, tapping on a corner of the same slab of stone with the toe of his shoe to point out an asymmetrical star. Alec recognised it immediately - he had a birthmark in the exact same shape on his left shoulder, and he knew that Izzy and Jace had the same mark somewhere on their bodies. This was their witches' mark, the mark of the demon Lilith's dubious blessings upon them.

Alec grabbed a shovel and wedged it into the crack between the slabs, and between him and Jace they managed to pry the stone with the marking out of the floor to reveal a narrow staircase into the dark. Something skittered in the depths, and Alec thought he saw tiny red rodent eyes catch the lights from their phones.

Jace grimaced. "Normally I'd say there's nothing to worry about because _we're_ the things that go bump in the night, but..."

"Where do we head to from here?" Izzy asked. 

Alec frowned in concentration - without his magic, he couldn't make the GPS work underground, but at least his map still worked fine. "Try to keep right. Let's head towards Federal Street."

Jace groaned. "The old dungeons where they imprisoned and tortured the people who were accused of witchcraft before their execution? Seriously? At least you didn't suggest the place where they hanged everyone," he said, then paused. "That was your next guess, wasn't it?"

Alec shrugged. "Or we could concentrate on finding a way out and come back another day when we've got proper flashlights and stuff."

"No, let's just get this over and done with," Izzy said, but even his normally fearless sister couldn't hide her apprehension. 

Alec grabbed a couple of gardening tools - another shovel and a pair of trimming shears - and handed them out to Jace and Izzy. The tools were made of stainless steel rather than cold iron, but it was better than nothing. 

"Well. Here goes nothing," Jace said, and took the lead down the stairs.

 

 

 

\--

 

Magnus' sneakers were soaked despite his best efforts to keep to the side of the storm drain he'd found himself in, but soggy socks were probably the least of his worries. In fact, the _ghosts_ were the least of his worries. He couldn't really understand them because there were too many of them trying to talk to him all at the same time and they'd been dead too long to keep their minds intact and coherent, but they mostly seemed upset that something bad was going to happen, and someone was somewhere they shouldn't be - and Magnus had a very strong feeling that that someone was Alec. Besides, the moment he'd entered the storm drain he'd felt the nauseating sensation of a foul magic pressing far too close for comfort, and the thought of Alec being trapped or attacked by something that wielded magic like that was spurring him on through the darkness in spite of his fear. (A tiny but insistent part of him whispered that this foreign magic felt a lot like the magic in the cloth bag Clary had tried to give him, and maybe _Alec_ was the one wielding this magic, but Magnus had managed to shove it down into a box and throw away the key. For now.)

Thankfully, the storm drain the spirits had led him to didn't seem to be properly part of Salem's underground network of smugglers' tunnels, so Magnus was uncomfortably aware of the other magic but still separate from its influence. He suspected that the drain ran parallel to the tunnels or perhaps intersected with it in places, but it didn't matter as long as it brought him where he was supposed to go... wherever that was. It probably hadn't been the smartest idea to just follow the spirits, but although he honestly had no idea where he was in relation to the town above ground, here and there he would pass metal rungs leading up to manholes, so he reasoned that he wasn't completely trapped.

Rats and cockroaches scurried away from him as he walked briskly through the darkness, the light from his phone bouncing off the walls; then he suddenly stopped walking, listening intently. Magnus took a few more steps forward, and sure enough he found a section of the wall where the bricks were loose. Removing the bricks revealed a hole just big enough for him to crawl through on his hands and knees. Magnus didn't mind getting a little dirty, but going through this tunnel would take him closer to the creepy magic, into somewhere that possibly didn't give him an easy escape to the town above. Wrinkling his nose, he adjusted the strap of his bag so that it was slung a little tighter around his body, and started crawling.

 

\--

 

Alec was sweating despite the cold, and he knew Jace and Izzy weren't faring much better as they stumbled through the narrow brick-lined tunnels. Ragnor's map was useful but not entirely accurate, since he hadn't exactly gone exploring these tunnels personally; twice they'd found themselves facing dead ends and had to double back. There was also a surprising amount of junk in the tunnels for them to trip over, some of it quite modern: piles of bricks, large rotting boards of wood, and sheets of galvanised iron propped against the walls like someone had started building something and forgotten about them halfway; a neon signboard with some letters missing, advertising a place called "-emonium"; and a room of shelves upon shelves of ancient canned food and fat glass gallon jars filled with liquids in varying shades of yellow and states of cloudiness, which Izzy said was probably just water, from when parts of the tunnel had been used as bomb shelters in World War Two. Most of the time the ceiling above them was solid brick as well, but sometimes it was just concrete covering a layer of rotting wood panelling, with rusty pipes just visible through the gaping holes where the concrete had fallen off. Everything was covered in an inch of grey powder, a mix of dust and god-knows-what, and Alec was starting to get a splitting headache from feeling like he couldn't breathe - not just because oxygen was in short supply, but because the walls seemed to be closing in on them on all sides, the curse that had robbed them of their magic starting to feel like a physical weight. The three of them had never been this cold, thirsty, exhausted, and unnervingly defenceless.

"Why aren't we there yet? It's like a fifteen-minute walk above ground," Jace complained. 

"Shh. Did you hear that?" Izzy whispered.

A baby was crying plaintively somewhere in the darkness ahead of them, thin, reedy wails from tiny lungs that were obviously not doing so well. Alec was struck by the simultaneous urge to find the child and comfort it, and to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Alec had been cold for so long that he was already numb to any further drops in temperature, but there was no ignoring the way their breaths were suddenly coming out in clouds of white.

"I hate this so fucking much," Jace muttered, tightening his grip on his shovel as they turned around the corner cautiously.

The stretch of tunnel was empty as far as they could tell, although there were shallow niches in the shape of arched doorways, set about a foot deep in the walls. Iron bars were just visible through the concrete, so Alec figured that the dungeon cells had already been sealed up. The crying had stopped as well, even though it was still freezing. 

"I guess this place is a dud. There's no place to hide anything here, the walls look pretty solid," Jace said with obvious relief as he thumped his fist on one of the walls. "Can we go now?"

"It'd make more sense for the Book to be hidden here, though, instead of at Proctor's Ledge," Izzy protested. "They levelled the hill ages ago, it's just a memorial right in front of the Walgreens parking lot now."

"Maybe it's hidden in plain sight next to the Advil and aspirin," Jace joked. 

"Let's look around for another mark or daisy wheel," Alec suggested. Then he looked up, and saw a pale face grinning down at him.

It dropped down on him with no warning and Alec didn't quite manage to get out of the way in time - its long nails scored a line of vicious scratches down his arm through his long-sleeved sweater. It was a spirit in the form of a middle-aged woman, her hair wild and eyes bloodshot, and it pounced at Alec again with a shriek. Izzy threw a handful of warding mix at it, and it disappeared briefly only to materialise behind her in the blink of an eye, and it was clear that it was no ordinary ghost when it proved corporeal enough to twist the gardening shears out of Izzy's hand and attempt to stab her with it. 

Alec moved without even really thinking, stepping in front of Izzy to shield her from the ghost, and the shears found its target in his gut instead, stabbing him just under the ribs. Izzy screamed his name and tried to pull him away but the damage was done; the ghost yanked the shears out and Alec gasped, his abdomen on fire and the taste of blood filling his mouth as he staggered into Izzy. Jace only just managed to grab him by the arm to steady him before he sent the both of them crashing to the floor, and between Izzy and Jace they managed to drag him into a corner away from the vengeful spirit, their backs against the wall. Izzy had the presence of mind to empty the rest of her bag in a circle around them while Jace tried futilely to put pressure on Alec's wound, but if Alec could speak he could have told Jace there was no use. 

"We need to get out of here so we can heal him with our magic," Izzy bit out.  

"How?" Jace replied in a low voice, his hands already slick with Alec's blood. 

Alec's vision was blurry from the pain, but he was still conscious enough to see the spirits emerging from the walls. There were six of them now, their pale faces stretched out into hideous grins, and Alec only managed to stay awake long enough to see them turn and began to advance on them before everything went dark. 

 

\--

 

When Magnus emerged from the hole from the sewers, he was already braced for the onslaught of foreign magic, but the force of it still took him by surprise. It was feeding on his magic, greedily pressing in on all sides like it was trying to squeeze it right out of him, and Magnus hunched his shoulders against the assault. For a moment all the clamouring voices of the dead went silent, and Magnus was surprised to find that he preferred having them in his head compared to this strange _blankness_. He groped at the threads of the magic that was working on him and even though it made his stomach turn to have to look at it too closely, he could see the shape of the spell in his mind's eye - an oily, shifting thing that filled the tunnels like smoke, and it was coiling around him, trying to smother him. 

It was too big, too strong. Magnus' first instinct was to fight his way out and go back the way he'd come while he still could, before it devoured him completely. Then he heard a girl's voice screaming "Alec!" somewhere in the maze of the tunnels ahead and the jolt of fear it sent into his heart turned the magic in his blood into pure lightning. It wasn't that different from making the protective bubble his mother had taught him, except that Magnus pushed the boundaries of it far beyond his personal space, letting his magic pour out of him in a flood to fill the entire network of tunnels, and he felt the dark spell snap like an overstretched elastic band. Magnus blinked in surprise that it had actually worked, taking deep gulps of the musty air as his lungs finally felt like they could expand properly again, then ran through the tunnels as fast as he could towards the scream he had heard earlier.

It took only a few minutes for him to reach the spot. There was nobody in sight but Magnus was sure that he was at the right place because there were a few gardening tools abandoned on the ground and the dust had obviously been disturbed, and worst of all, there was blood everywhere - smeared on the ground like someone had been dragged through the dust while bleeding out.

"Alexander?" Magnus called out, holding his phone up a little higher. He took a few steps forward, and there was a susurrus behind him.

Magnus spun around and his stomach dropped when he saw the spectres. These weren't the same as the dead that had been trying to talk to him all night - these spirits were decidedly not friendly, but it wasn't their fault. There was a touch of the foul magic on them, and Magnus suspected that they were being controlled, rudely ripped away from their eternal rest to serve the bidding of the person who had cast the spell. Unfortunately, from what he could remember from stories his mother had told him, this sort of black magic usually required the caster to steal part of the corpse, so Magnus wasn't sure he could reverse the spell and put the spirits to rest without locating the stolen body parts, but he had to try. 

As they floated towards him, he stretched one hand out in front of him, fingers splayed. "Stop."

  

\--

 

When Alec came to, the pain in his abdomen was fading quickly. Both Izzy and Jace were pressing down on the wound, and their hands were warm - with magic. 

"How...?" Alec mumbled, gradually aware that his own magic had also returned to him.  

"We don't know. There was a wave of magic, and the curse was lifted," Izzy replied, brows furrowed in concentration. 

"And the ghosts?" 

"I threw some of the salt mix at them and they seem to be gone for now," she said.  

"Someone's coming," Jace said sharply. 

Izzy turned away from Alec and cast a glamour spell that fell over them like a blanket, hiding them from view, but Alec only just managed to stop himself from making a sound of surprise when Magnus came running towards them. He froze, heart pounding furiously. Magnus couldn't find them here like this, because then he'd know what Alec was - not just that Alec had magic, but that he was part of this stupid deal with a demon, that his family had been murdering innocent people for three hundred years, because there was no other way to explain what he was doing down here covered in blood. Izzy's fingers gripped his arm tightly when Magnus called out Alec's name, but otherwise the three of them stayed completely still, not even daring to breathe too loudly.

Then the ghosts started to emerge from the walls, and Alec was about to throw caution to the wind and just get to Magnus because Magnus had unwittingly put himself between them and the ghosts, when Magnus halted the spirits in their tracks with just a word and a gesture. It shouldn't have been possible; even Izzy had needed spells and talismans to do this, but he could feel Magnus' magic reaching out towards the spirits, just raw and unadulterated power. Even though Alec couldn't see Magnus' expression because his back was turned towards them, he could see the faces of the ghosts clearly, and to his surprise the vicious, menacing looks on their faces melted away and they closed their eyes, looking like they were finally at peace, before they faded away into the darkness. Alec could see his shock mirrored on Izzy and Jace's faces. They had known that Magnus was powerful, but this was a whole different level of magic. Besides, they had always assumed that Magnus was using his magic subconsciously, but now it seemed like he clearly knew what he was doing. 

Magnus called out Alec's name again, and stopped a foot away from their hiding place. He frowned and tapped on his phone, probably trying to call Alec, but Alec was pretty sure there was no cell service down here. When he didn't manage to get hold of Alec, Magnus shook his head and moved on down the tunnel, obviously worried out of his mind.

He could feel Jace and Izzy's eyes on him while they waited for Magnus to get out of earshot, and when all was quiet, it was Jace who finally broke the silence. "Dude. Your fake boyfriend can control the dead."

"I think he might have been the one who broke the curse that was stopping our magic as well," Izzy said faintly. Alec could only shrug and pretend that he wasn't unnerved by Magnus' show of power as well.

"Let's get you home, you look like shit," Jace said, helping Alec to his feet.

"I'm fine. We need to find the Book, we're obviously in the right place," Alec protested, even though he _was_ feeling a bit dizzy from the blood loss.

"Are you fucking serious right now?" Jace sighed, but Alec was already scanning the walls, back on task.

Without the distraction of the ghosts and the spell, Alec found the mark quickly enough - an asymmetrical star etched just under the archway in the middle. Alec placed his bloodied hand flat on the wall, and it swung open with a push to reveal a dark room. The first thing they noticed was the six skeletal remains slumped against the walls like puppets that'd had their strings cut. The second was a nook in the wall containing a thin book bound in black leather, which was about the size of a standard hotel room compact bible. 

"They're going to notice it's gone," Jace pointed out.  

"Don't you think I thought of that?" Izzy snapped, gingerly easing it out of its hiding place.

When no wards appeared to be triggered, she placed the Book on the floor opened to the first page, and used her phone to take a picture - or at least attempted to, because her phone sparked and died, forcing her to drop it with a yelp of pain. 

"We'll take it with us, find the right spell, and put it back as soon as we can," Alec suggested, picking up the spellbook. He'd gotten a bit of his blood on the cover, but it couldn't be helped because his hands were stained red with it. Alec shoved the book in the back pocket of his jeans and the three of them hurried out of the room. 

Alec was the last one out of the door, and as he crossed the threshold he was hit by another wave of dizziness. He crooked his finger, and the door slammed shut. " _Berald. Beroald. Balbin. Gab. Gabor. Agaba. Esurgent mortuit et ac me venit,_ " he muttered. 

"What was that?" Jace asked.  

"Nothing. Just putting the wards back in place. Let's go," Alec replied absent-mindedly as he swept his hand over the place to erase all traces of them having been here.

He couldn't wait to get out of the tunnels, and neither could the Book. 

 

  


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

Alec's phone started vibrating like crazy with missed calls and messages from Magnus the moment they stepped out of the Crowninshield mausoleum, but Alec didn't respond, choosing instead to drain the battery of his phone so any further calls would go straight to voicemail. He knew it was cruel, and that Magnus had been frantic thinking that Alec had been seriously injured in the tunnels, but Alec knew he wasn't a very good liar and he was simply too exhausted to even try to dissemble around Magnus right now. It was easier to just pretend that he'd been asleep and had forgotten to charge his phone. The three of them piled into his car, and when Izzy insisted on driving Alec didn't even try to protest.

Alec closed his eyes as another wave of dizziness came over him. "Izzy, let's go home, alright? Not Lightwood House."

"What? We can't bring the Book home, Mom will find it!" Izzy hissed.  

"It'll look suspicious if we go up to Lightwood House now, we're way past curfew," Alec pointed out. "Jace can stay over and we can just say that we were up late studying."

"Alec has a point. We can always move the Book to Lightwood House tomorrow or something," Jace agreed. 

"Tomorrow? How long were you thinking of keeping the Book? I was planning to find the spell and return it to the tunnels tonight," Izzy said. "The sooner we put it back, the less likely we'll be found out." 

"We went to all that trouble to get it out and you want to put it back tonight? Is one proper night's sleep before we have to go stumble in the dark again too much to ask for? I'm beat," Jace groaned.  

"Izzy, we'll slip up or miss something if we're tired," Alec said. 

"I'll go on my own, then," Izzy said. 

" _No,_ " Alec and Jace said simultaneously. 

Izzy's gaze in the rearview mirror went to Alec's ruined sweater and his pale face. It had been a close call for him tonight, and they were all shaken.

"Alright. Let's go home," she relented. 

They managed to sneak into their bedrooms easily enough. There was a guest room just next to Alec's bedroom that was basically Jace's, and they all went their separate ways to shower and get ready for bed. 

"Hey, man. Get some sleep, ok?" Jace said, clapping Alec on the back. 

Alec nodded and closed his bedroom door behind him. He grimaced as he pulled his sweater off, the dried blood making the fabric stick to his skin. There was a large gash in the sweater where the shears had stabbed him - Alec and Izzy mostly did their own laundry, but he would probably have to throw this away in case his mother saw it. He prodded the place on his abs where the wound had been, and although it didn't hurt anymore Alec could still remember how it'd felt - how the excruciating pain had become meaningless too quickly, and how terrified he'd been when he'd known he was going to die there in the tunnel, though he'd never admit it to Izzy and Jace.

He took his phone and the Book out of his pockets with shaky hands, put the phone on his bed and the Book in the drawer of his nightstand - ironically probably the last place Maryse would think to look because she was a firm believer of respecting her children's privacy. His dead phone stared accusingly at him on his plain blue sheets, and he was struck by an intense need to call Magnus right now, just to hear his voice - except that nothing was that simple. On one hand, there was a possible dark side to Magnus too, and reality was creeping in on the daydream of the normal life he was pretending he could have with Magnus, but on the other hand having experienced first-hand the loss of his magic, Alec was starting to wonder if "normal" was really something he'd be able to get used to. It was just too much for Alec to deal with it at the moment.

The rest of his clothes went into the laundry hamper and Alec went to take a hot shower in hopes that it would make him feel a little better. Meanwhile, the Black Book sat in the drawer amongst a detritus of random knick-knacks that Alec had accidentally accumulated over the years but had somehow never gotten around to throwing out: things like shells and rocks he had casually picked up on family trips to the beach, some from back when Robert had still been alive; old movie tickets from watching almost every summer blockbuster with Jace, Izzy, and Max; glossy men's fashion magazines, not even porn, just filled with handsome male models in sharp suits; a Rubik's cube that he had been obsessed with briefly, then promptly forgotten once he'd finally solved it; and a cheap leather bracelet Izzy had bought him from the Halloween fair a few years back that Alec had only stopped wearing because it was falling apart. All seemingly innocuous junk, insignificant.

And the Book fed on the love and the memories, and bided its time. 

 

 

Alec was still in the shower when he heard several cars pull in the driveway. He got dressed in a hurry, hair still dripping, and came out into the corridor at the same time as Jace, Izzy, and a very sleepy Max. There were raised voices coming from the main hall, but in a house this size the echoes distorted them so much it was hard to tell who was talking or even how many people there were. Unfortunately, Alec thought he had a good idea who their midnight visitors were and why they were here.  

"Fuck," Jace muttered, genuinely afraid, because there was no doubt that Stephen Herondale was one of the people downstairs. 

"What's going on?" Max mumbled. 

"Go back to sleep, Max. It's probably something to do with the Reaping," Alec said, and his baby brother nodded, grimacing.  

"How did they find out so quickly?" Jace asked in a low voice as they hurried towards the side staircase to eavesdrop on the conversation. 

"Are you kidding? After Magnus broke the curse with that surge of magic and banished the spirits? Why did you think I wanted to put the Book back tonight?" Izzy said exasperatedly. 

Jocelyn, Stephen, Hodge, and Maryse were in the main hall, and even Jonathan was there standing next to his mother. Maryse was still in her power suit, so she hadn't been home before this. Alec, Izzy, and Jace didn't even have to try too hard to eavesdrop, because Jocelyn and Stephen were shouting at Maryse at the top of their voices.

"How dare you even suggest such a thing? It's _not_ them," she snapped.

"Then maybe _you_ told your children to try to get the Book," Jocelyn said, taking a step towards Maryse threateningly. "I always knew you were ambitious. Wasn't that why you married Robert, because you thought that it might make your bloodlines stronger? Don't you think I know that your daughter has been trying to get her hooks into my Clary as well?" 

"Not everyone thinks like Valentine," Maryse replied coldly.

Jocelyn's face grew blotchy red with fury, but she didn't back down. "It had to be one of us. Nobody else knows about the Black Book." 

"I told _my_ kids that the Book was destroyed," Maryse said pointedly. 

"I think we're being paranoid. It could have been someone who accidentally stumbled on the hiding place," Hodge suggested placatingly. "After all the revenants that guard the Book were still active, and they are spelled to destroy any living soul who tries to get to the Book. Even we have always only used a puppet to check on the Book indirectly."

"Didn't Magnus get rid of the revenants?" Izzy murmured.

"Maybe he just made them go away for a while," Jace suggested, but Alec kept quiet. _He_ had enslaved the spirits again, the words of the spell just coming to him - but how had that happened? He suddenly felt oddly floaty.

In the meantime, Stephen was really laying into Hodge, and if Hodge had been the more assertive sort he'd probably have decked Stephen. "Are you suggesting that someone also undid the suppressing curse and cast a protective spell over half the city by accident? Do you even know how stupid you sound?" Stephen asked Hodge with a sneer. "They may have survived this attempt at stealing the Book, but you can bet they'll be back."

"The protections are back in place, and they won't be able to get in without the blood of the five. The Book is safe, and has been safe for more than ten years," Hodge protested weakly. 

"For now. The protective spell is our biggest clue. We must break it right now and track them down before they try again. After all, we still need sacrifices for the Reaping," Jocelyn said. 

Alec ran a hand through his damp hair, drying it in an instant, and stepped out into the light, Izzy and Jace right behind him. " _I_ cast the protective spell. It's got nothing to do with this book you're talking about," Alec said.

Jocelyn looked at Maryse contemptuously. "And here you were, claiming your children had nothing to do with this." 

"Wait, is this about Magnus?" Jonathan suddenly spoke up. When Alec nodded in surprise, Jonathan turned to his mom and told her, "Alec's boyfriend has the gift. I think Alec was just worried that someone would put him up for the Reaping." 

"Jace and I helped with the spell. We weren't sure it would work against the Reaping spell, so we made it extra strong," Izzy added. "But, um, I'm not sure we know how to undo it."

"Well, that's part of the mystery solved. The kids just don't know their own strength," Hodge said with a nervous laugh. 

"And Magnus doesn't know how to use his magic, so he can't be the person who's trying to get the book," Jonathan said. "Mom, I told you, it can't have been the Lightwoods. I _know_ them. They care about Clary too, they wouldn't mess up our chances of getting the Lady to give Clary back her magic."

Jocelyn scowled suspiciously at Alec and Maryse, but even her own son had chosen not to take her side. She turned and stomped out wordlessly. 

"Come on, boy, I haven't got all day," Stephen barked at Jace as he moved towards the door. "You spend too much time here."

"But my stuff-" Jace mumbled. He was only in sleeping clothes, but was obviously terrified of pissing his father off further. 

"We'll pass them to you tomorrow," Izzy told Jace, and gave him a quick hug before he hurried out after his father. 

"I told you I had your back," Jonathan told Alec in a low voice, and gave him a thumbs-up before he went off as well.

Hodge had a few whispered words with Maryse, pecked her on the cheek, then turned to Izzy and Alec and clapped Alec on the shoulder. "You kids stay out of trouble, alright?" 

Maryse saw Hodge to the door before rounding on them. "Please tell me you really had nothing to do with what happened in the tunnels tonight."

"We were home studying," Alec insisted. 

Maryse pursed her lips. "Your shirt collar is still wet."

"Couldn't sleep, thought a shower might help," Alec replied with a shrug. 

"Mom, why did you tell us the Book had been destroyed when it wasn’t?" Izzy blurted out. 

Maryse sighed. "The Black Book is a curse, not a gift. Why do you think it's put under protections so strong that even we don't go near it? It contains the original spell that was used to summon and bind Lilith and the covenant that binds us to her, and that isn't even the worst thing in that book. The Book is dangerous." 

Alec frowned. Or had they just been told that it was dangerous so nobody would go looking for the counterspell to break the covenant with Lilith? 

"If the Book is so dangerous, why didn't someone just burn it?" Izzy asked. 

"The deal we made binds us to her, but it also binds her to  _us_. It means she can't hurt us and the ones we love," Maryse reminded them. "If I could've been sure that we could end the covenant with no repercussions just by burning the Book, I would have tried to do it ages ago. Let _me_ worry about the covenant and leave the Book alone."

"But we want to help! We're not children anymore," Izzy protested. 

"You will always be my babies. If you want to help, just don't give me cause for worry," Maryse said gently but firmly. 

"Ok, we won't go anywhere near the tunnels, I promise," Alec said. 

Maryse smiled and patted his cheek. "I've never had to worry about you, I know you'll keep an eye on your siblings. But what is this about a boyfriend?" 

"Uh... We've only been going out for a few weeks," Alec said, flustered by the change in topic. 

"But significant enough for you to get all anxious over his safety. If you want, you can invite him over for dinner. I'd like to meet him," Maryse said. 

"Mom, give them some space," Izzy said, trying to keep her voice light. 

Maryse raised an eyebrow at Alec. "Too soon?" 

"Maybe after the Reaping?" Alec suggested.  

"Alright," Maryse agreed. She kissed both of them on the cheek, though Alec had to bend down for her to reach his cheek. "Now go to bed."

As Alec and Izzy were making their way upstairs, Izzy said, "Do you think Valentine lied to us about the Book having the answers? If Mom has been looking for a way to break the covenant, wouldn't she have found something in there?" 

"I don't know, but it sounds like most of them don't dare to go near the Book, though."

"Do you think it was a mistake to take it out? I didn't expect to have to go through the revenants and the suppressing curse again to put it back. We might need to rope Magnus in so we can use his talent," Izzy said, chewing her lower lip. 

"No, leave Magnus out of it," Alec said a little more sharply than he'd intended, then quickly added, "It'll be fine, Iz. Nobody even knows for sure that it's missing. Let's just hang on to it for a while." 

"But Mom said it's dangerous."

"The spells inside, maybe, but we're not going to go around randomly trying out spells for fun," Alec said. "What can keeping it hurt? It's just a book."

  

\--

 

Magnus didn't sleep well that night. He'd tried to convince himself that he'd imagined someone calling out Alec's name and that it'd just been some weird echo in the tunnels, and even though Alec hadn't returned his calls or responded to his messages, it didn't necessarily mean that he had been the one down in the tunnels... right? But Magnus' broken sleep wasn't just because he hadn't heard from Alec all night. He was plagued by strange nightmares, a combination of the horrifying things he'd seen in the tunnels and dreams that felt like fragments of memories from people from varying time periods, and once he thought he'd woken up briefly to see Chairman sitting at the feet of a shadowy figure standing in front of his shelf. 

In the morning, he woke up to the Chairman sleeping on his pillow above his head and a light blinking on his phone with a message from Alec. 

_Sorry I missed your calls, I forgot to charge my phone. I'll see you at lunch, ok? Miss you._

Despite the night he'd had, Magnus couldn't help smiling a little at that and quickly typed out his reply: _Miss you too._

It took a considerable amount of concealer to cover up the dark circles under his eyes, but when he finally found Alec in the dining hall, Alec looked far worse than Magnus felt, and Magnus' whole body ached like someone had sucked out all the marrow in his bones - the inevitable price for fraternising with the dead.

"Alexander, are you ok?" Magnus asked worriedly, thinking back to all the blood he'd seen in that one section of the tunnels with the possessed spirits. That might not even have been human blood, and of course Alec would probably be in the hospital right now if he'd been injured badly enough to bleed that much, but Alec did seem paler than normal.

"Yeah, just having a headache. Was up really late helping Jace with his stuff," Alec mumbled. 

Or wandering in underground tunnels filled with dark magic and vicious spirits, a sarcastic little voice in Magnus' head suggested, but Magnus blithely ignored it. "Then go home. I'll drive." 

Alec shook his head and winced from the movement. "I've got a quiz today. I'm fine."

Alec was a bit shy about public displays of affection, but Magnus couldn't resist brushing Alec's fringe aside and planting a gentle kiss on his forehead. To his surprise, Alec tilted his head up and pulled Magnus a little lower so he could kiss him properly on the lips.

"Hey, I'm really sorry about missing all your calls and messages. I'll do better next time," Alec said. 

"It's alright. I just wanted to hear your voice after work, and I thought I saw... never mind." Magnus tried to shrug off his lingering unease and smiled at Alec as he threaded their fingers together under the table. "Maybe I could help Jace with his schoolwork next time. What does he need help in?"

"Uh, basically everything?" Alec said. 

"Excuse you, Lightwood," a voice said from behind them. Magnus turned to see three people approaching their table - Izzy, Jace, and a red-haired boy he didn't recognise, whom Alec introduced as Jonathan. 

While Izzy and Jonathan were friendly enough and tried to make polite small talk with Magnus throughout the lunch break, Jace was oddly belligerent despite Alec's pointed glares. Magnus took it in his stride - meeting Alec's siblings and friends was bound to be a little awkward at first. He was just a normal boy with his completely normal boyfriend, sitting in a completely normal university cafeteria, and - oh fuck, who was he kidding? The tension at the table could be cut with a knife, and Magnus had a feeling it wasn't just because he was there. Something had obviously happened last night between the other four people at the table. Besides, Jace's hostility had nothing on the slightly creepy way Jonathan kept smiling at Magnus every time he turned to talk to Alec or casually touched him on the arm to get his attention. 

"Ok, I've got to get to class. It was nice meeting all of you," Magnus finally said, giving Alec’s hand a squeeze as he got up. 

"I'll text you," Alec told him quietly.

"Oh, where are you heading to? Maybe we could walk together," Jonathan said, getting up from his seat as well. 

"South campus," Alec replied before Magnus could. "It's in the other direction from you." 

"Yeah, you're right," Jonathan said regretfully. "Well, bye, then. It was a pleasure to finally meet you, Magnus."

Magnus plastered on a smile and waved goodbye to the rest of them, strolling down the hallway slowly. Once he was sure he was out of sight, he turned left and took a route that would take him to the entrance on the other side of the cafeteria, keeping an eye out for Jonathan, and approached the table where Alec and his siblings were still sitting from their blindside. There was a row of tables not too far away; Magnus picked a seat half-hidden by a pillar, not looking their way but listening intently. He felt a bit guilty eavesdropping on Alec and his siblings like this, but something was just not right. 

At first, he couldn't hear anything even though their lips were clearly moving, but Magnus concentrated and suddenly he could hear them. 

"-sticking to us like glue all day," Alec was saying. 

"Jonathan did do us a favour throwing Jocelyn off our track. Just try to be civil, big brother. Nobody said you had to pretend to be BFFs," Izzy said. 

"Speaking of faking it, did I see you and Magnus kissing?" Jace asked Alec, and Magnus' heart plummeted. 

"Yeah, so what? I'm not taking advantage of him," Alec said defensively.

"I wasn't talking about you taking advantage of him, I was talking about _him_ taking advantage of _you_ ," Jace said in exasperation. "I thought you were just pretending to date him so you could keep an eye on him and make sure he wasn't a threat to us."

"Unless the fake boyfriend isn't so fake anymore," Izzy said shrewdly. "You did tell Mom that you were going to bring him home."

"Yeah. I guess it got a bit more serious than I expected," Alec said sheepishly. 

Magnus felt like his heart had only just started beating again when Jace said, "What the fuck, so you're dating our resident necromancer for real? What did he have to say for himself about those abilities he's been hiding?" 

"He didn't say anything, and I'm hardly in a position to complain about him hiding things from me. If you see him again, don't bring it up. Magnus can't know that it was us in the tunnels last night," Alec said. "C'mon, let's go, we're all going to be late for class."

 

 

Magnus stayed hidden where he was until they were gone, mulling everything over. He didn't know if he should be angry or baffled that Alec had only asked him out in the first place because he'd somehow thought that Magnus was a _threat_ to his family, but Alec's odd behaviour at first was making a lot more sense now. Whatever it was, Alec was right - they'd both been keeping big secrets from each other. 

Instead of going for classes, Magnus headed straight to the student government office. Sure enough, he found Alec hunched over his textbook, rubbing his temples and obviously in no fit state to be taking any quiz. From the looks of it, Alec might have been hiding how much discomfort he was really in throughout lunch, and Magnus' resolve to confront Alec faltered - maybe that could wait until Alec was feeling better.

Alec looked up in surprise, his pleased expression quickly becoming something like guilt. "Hey. Don't you have classes now?"

"Alexander, just tell your professor you're ill and take the quiz another day," Magnus said.

"I'm fine," Alec mumbled.

"No, you're not, stop being stubborn. Let me take you home - doctor's orders. And after you get better, we can play the fun version of doctor." 

Alec huffed out a laugh but obediently packed up his things and let Magnus help him to his car. Magnus insisted that Alec should take a rest in the backseat and drove Alec home following the instructions on his GPS.

They had just left the boundaries of Salem Town when Magnus looked in the rearview mirror and saw the pinched look on Alec's face, and he couldn't resist commenting, "You know, my mom used to mix a special _jamu_ for headaches. Maybe I could try to find her recipe for it." 

Alec frowned and opened his eyes. "What?" 

"Did I tell you that my mom lived in Indonesia before I was born?" Magnus asked, trying to keep his voice neutral. He had never spoken so plainly about his and his mother's talents to anyone, not even to Ragnor and Catarina, but he supposed that maybe if he came clean with his secrets first, Alec would be more willing to share his. "She worked as a janitor when she came to America, but back when she was still in Indonesia, my mom held a very important position in her village. She was - well, I suppose you'd call her a witch doctor."

Alec sat up a little straighter but didn't say anything, so Magnus pushed on. 

"People found out about her even here, through word of mouth. They came to her for good luck charms and healing when normal medicines didn't work, but mostly they came to her when they had problems of the supernatural sort - ghosts, djinns, and black magic." Magnus took a deep breath, and continued, "That's one way that I take after my mom. I inherited her magic." 

Alec opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and shut his mouth. 

"I know it was you down in the tunnels last night," Magnus said quietly. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Alec replied a little too quickly.

"Look, I understand more than anyone why you would want to keep it a secret," Magnus said. "When my biological father's business failed and he had an accident that left him crippled in one leg, he claimed that my mother had cursed him and that the baby she was expecting was a demon's child. The village respected her but they also feared her, and he turned them against her overnight. She had to flee her home to avoid the witch-hunt, even though everyone who knew her should have known that she despised black magic and she spent her whole life protecting people from it. But this is different - I'm just like you."

Alec sank lower into his seat and shook his head, visibly torn between wanting to be honest with Magnus and wanting to protect his secret, but to Magnus' disappointment, when it came down to it, Alec still didn't trust him. "Magnus, you can't be serious. There's no such thing as magic," Alec finally mumbled, not meeting Magnus' eyes. 

Magnus swallowed his bitterness and neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey, the electronic voice from the GPS the only thing that dared to break the silence until Magnus stopped in front of the Trueblood mansion. 

"Magnus, I... I'll call you later, alright?" Alec said miserably as he got out of the car, but Magnus was still fuming. 

"Why bother? Maybe you're still faking it after all," Magnus bit out, and forced himself not to look back as he drove away.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *channels Matt/Alec* It's just a fight, not a break-up! 🙈


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

Alec didn't turn up at school the next day, or the day after that. By then, Magnus had cooled down enough that he would probably have picked up the phone on the fifth or sixth time Alec attempted to call, and might even have been in the mood to listen to Alec provided it involved the truth and a lot of grovelling. But there was nothing but silence from Alec - no calls, no messages. Strangely enough, Isabelle Lightwood had smiled and waved at Magnus from across the cafeteria, which meant that Alec hadn't even told his sister about their fight.

Well, if Alec's family was still out and about like everything was normal, then Alec wasn't dead. And if he wasn't dead, then he could damn well pick up the phone and call Magnus, because Magnus wasn't going to cave and go chasing after a boy who had lied straight to his face after Magnus had told him one of his biggest secrets. It wasn't like Magnus kept opening his messaging app to look at the last messages he'd exchanged with Alec. 

_Miss you._

_Miss you too._

Magnus' friends had picked up on his mood immediately. Those at home had stocked up on his favourite ice cream and offered him hugs and a listening ear if he needed one, and even Raphael had asked him gruffly if he needed some time off. He was grateful for their love and support, but Magnus wasn't the sort to kiss and tell, and the same went for fights and disagreements with his significant others. In the past, his mother had always been his confidante, letting Magnus just vent his frustrations without asking for details, but Magnus was especially wary of talking about his problems with Alec to anybody, even Catarina and Ragnor, because no matter how furious he was with Alec, Magnus wasn't going to go around blabbing Alec's secrets. So Magnus resigned himself to whispering his woes to Chairman Meow, who replied with low sympathetic _mrrrr_ sounds which probably meant "I told you so" in feline, because the Chairman really hadn't liked Alec at all. 

It was only when he was helping Clary put the finishing touches on the Halloween decorations outside Coffeen Brew after closing hours that Magnus realised that there was one friend he could talk to who already knew Alec's secret - who was  _part_ of the secret - and who might understand why the fuck Alec and his siblings would even think it was necessary to "keep an eye" on him, as if Magnus was a bomb waiting to go off. 

"Hey, Clary. I understand if you can't, but I kinda need someone to talk to," Magnus said as he came down the ladder.

"Is it about Alec?" Clary asked him, straightening up. 

"I had a fight with him," Magnus admitted. "You've been warning me from the start that it would be a bad idea to get involved with him, and I think I know why, now." 

"Oh." Clary chewed on her lower lip and nodded, putting down her paintbrush. "I'm mostly done. Let's go to the Common?"

They popped back into the coffee shop to grab their coats and tell Simon and Raphael that they were going for a walk, and were on their way. Downtown Salem was dark and quiet, but as they walked down Essex Street, Magnus saw shadows lurking in shop windows, disappearing when he turned to look at them properly. Clary didn't seem to see them but she shivered and pulled her thick coat a little tighter around her. Much to Magnus' surprise, Clary also didn't seem to mind crossing the street at the Hawthorne Hotel, which was reputed to be one of the most haunted places in Salem, but thankfully they got to the Common unmolested by anything supernatural. 

Salem Common was a large park, popular for family picnics and soccer games. It was empty at this hour, but there had been a free screening of _Gremlins_ earlier that night, one of the few movies on the roster that didn't involve ghosts or witches, and he and Alec had made plans to watch it together. The sausage stands and fried dough trucks were closed now but the smell of grease still lingered in the cold autumn air. Magnus and Clary wandered over to the large empty playground and sat down on the swings, their feet planted in the sand as they rocked back and forth gently.

"How did you find out that Alec's a witch?" Clary asked in a low voice.

_Technically_ Magnus hadn't overheard or seen anything that could be taken as proof that Alec could use magic, and here was confirmation that Magnus' suspicions had been right. But the victory felt hollow since it came from Clary rather than Alec himself, and Clary apparently trusted him more than Alec did.

"I accidentally overheard him talking to Izzy and Jace," Magnus replied, fiddling with one of his rings. "But that's not what I'm upset about. He flat-out denied everything to my face, and I found out that he's been lying to me about other things as well. I know we haven't been going out for that long, but I told him things I've never told anyone else. I thought he trusted me more than that." 

"Oh, Magnus. I've known Alec since we were little kids and he's always been so stand-offish around people who aren't his family. I've never seen him look at anyone else the way he looks at you," Clary assured him quickly. "I don't think it's about trust. I think he's ashamed."

"Of what?" Magnus asked, his voice rising with incredulity. 

"Have you ever had anything strange happen to you, something that you couldn't quite explain? Stuff that seemed like really good luck, only it keeps happening?"

Magnus would hardly call his ability to communicate with the dead "really good luck", but he supposed magic manifested in different ways for everyone. "Sure. I guess," he hedged. 

"I knew it. That night when you were asking about the tunnels..." Clary muttered. She looked down at the bracelet on her wrist, plucking at the fraying leather. "Imagine that all your life, you and your family have had an advantage over other people because you've been exploiting them, hurting them. Wouldn't you be afraid that if someone you cared about found out the truth, they would be disgusted with you? Especially if they're exactly the kind of people who would normally get hurt because of you?"

"I don't think I follow," Magnus said, frowning. "Alec isn't a bad person."

"No, I didn't mean that! It's just... even if you haven't done anything personally, if every single person in your family - your brother, parents, grandparents, everyone up the line - have all done horrible, unforgivable things, wouldn't you be afraid that you're just like them, somehow? That if someone gets too close to you, one day you're going to hurt them because it's in your blood."

"Biscuit, what the _hell_ are you talking about?"

"Sorry, I think that was partly about me," Clary mumbled. "This secret is bigger than real witches living in Salem, alright? I don't blame Alec for wanting to keep you out of it, to keep you safe - that's why I haven't told Simon either. Lots of people have died because of it."

"If you're talking about the witch trials, that was _three hundred year_ s ago. How is that even relevant now?" Magnus said. 

"No, Magnus. Bad things have been going on in Salem for a long time," Clary said. "I think it'll be better if Alec is the one to explain everything to you. But you deserve to know that being with Alec is going to be complicated, even though it's not really his fault. Sometimes you have to do things that you know are wrong to protect the people you love."

"This is starting to sound like I'm dating someone from the mafia."

"Honestly, that's not a bad comparison," Clary said with a nervous laugh. 

"Great," Magnus said wryly. "How did you manage to get out of it, then?" 

"I didn't. Even though I don't have any magic," Clary said with a sigh. At Magnus' questioning look, she said, "Something happened to me when I was a kid, it's a long story. But my brother Jonathan told me that he and my mom have a plan to get me back my magic even though I've told them that I don't want it, and I'm scared, Magnus. I'm scared for all of them."

"Jonathan is your _brother_?" Magnus said, making a face. He nudged her gently with his shoulder. "If it helps, I don't think you're anything like him, and I don't think any less of you just because he's your brother. Thank you for being honest with me."

Clary flashed a small smile at him and nudged him back with her shoulder. "Well, the stakes are different for me."

Magnus frowned. "What do you mean?" 

Clary shrugged, smile turning a little sad. "I'm not afraid of losing you the way that Alec is."

  

\--

  

A memorial had been built in Danvers for the victims of the Salem Witch Trials on the 300th anniversary of the Trials - a sarcophagus and a pair of iron shackles that had been symbolically broken by a book resting on top of a box, all carved from pale granite. The words "THE BOOK OF LIFE" were engraved in bold letters across the open pages of the book, which looked a bit like a Bible. The memorial stood across the street from a row of ordinary houses and in front of a plot of land that appeared to be perpetually vacant, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

The committee behind the project had been headed by Tatiana Blackthorn (née Lightwood) and Roderick Fairchild, the proposal had been approved by the city council under Adam Trueblood, the land had been donated by real estate developer Mrs Cordelia Herondale, and the cost of building the memorial had been funded largely by a generous contribution from the Salem Eastern Bank, owned by Aloysius Starkweather.

Twenty-five names were carved on the memorial, but these were only the "official" victims of the Trial - the people who had been convicted and executed, and the ones who had died in jail, declaring their innocence with their dying breaths. There were five rosettes on the slant-top box that the book rested upon, one for each of the five Salem witch families, and Alec had always thought the memorial was proof that their ancestors had been assholes with a really fucked up sense of humour, because the book was actually modelled after a real book. The book in question was kept in the basement of the house in the empty plot of land, a house nobody else could see, and contained all names the victims of the Reapings over the centuries.

Alec probably shouldn't have driven there when he was drunk, but all he'd been thinking about was that maybe destroying the book that held the lists of names would break the covenant. It had turned out to be a dumb idea because no matter what Alec did, it always reverted to its previous state - he couldn't even erase a name or tear out a page, much less erase the entire book from existence. He had, however, discovered that there were already thirty-two names on the list, which meant that he had pretty much failed at preventing the Reaping. So here he was, sitting on the floor swigging whiskey from an ancient bottle he'd stolen from the Trueblood family's liquor cabinet and staring blankly at the book of names, replaying how quickly it'd all gone wrong. 

After Magnus had gone off in a fury, Alec had retreated to his room in a daze. It was easy enough to tell Izzy that the blood loss from his injuries the night before was making him feel unwell, and to ask her to cover for him with their mother. Izzy had slipped him some iron pills when she brought chicken soup up for him, and Alec had just pretended to be asleep and flushed the food and pills down the toilet afterwards. 

The truth was, Alec really wasn't feeling himself. He didn't have any appetite and couldn't sleep, and the few times that Alec did manage to doze off, he'd just ended up more exhausted than before. The headache that he had woken up with the morning after their foray into the tunnels was like a vice tightening around his skull, and he was heartsick from the knowledge that he had ruined everything with Magnus. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the hurt and disappointment he'd seen on Magnus' face through the rearview mirror, as well as Magnus' expression of vicious disgust when he had been talking about black magic. Even though Magnus and his mother had a talent for curses and controlling ghosts, they'd turned it around into a way to help people; on the other hand, here was Alec, who owed his magic to a demon and whose family had been murdering other gifted people for centuries. Alec didn't deserve a guy like Magnus, and it was selfish of him to even try to be with him, dragging him down into this whole mess.

Even though he wasn't sleeping, Alec kept losing time. Before he knew it, he'd been holed up inside his room for two days, and he only realised it because his mother had come around knocking at his door to ask if he was really alright. Alec hadn't had the strength to answer her, but in his disorientated state he thought he'd heard someone reply her with his voice, telling her that he was ok. Later, he figured that he'd probably dreamt it. Why would his family care about what was happening to him? He'd let them down too, with his empty promises of finding a way to end their deal with Lilith. 

His desperation at the thought of his family turning their backs on him the way Magnus had was what had finally spurred him to get out of the room and try to burn the book of names, and that was where Izzy and Jace finally found him, frantic with worry. 

"Alec, what are you doing here? We've been looking all over for you!" Izzy said. 

"What for? So you can tell me how disappointed you are in me too?" Alec muttered. 

"What the fuck are you talking about? Dude, are you actually drunk?" Jace exclaimed. 

Alec shrugged. "It's the only way to get him to shut up."

"Get who to shut up?" Izzy asked. 

"Him. Me. Other me," Alec replied, gesturing vaguely.

"What? Alec, this isn't funny," Jace said, moving to take the bottle of whisky away from Alec, but Alec snarled and jerked it away violently.

"Fuck off!"

Jace held both hands up in surrender. "Ok, jeez." 

Alec could see Jace and Izzy having a silent conversation right there in front of him, as if he didn't know the meaning of the gestures they were exchanging. "I'm fine! I'm handling it!" he snapped.

"Alec, is it the Book?" Izzy asked, but Alec couldn't seem to make himself focus on her words.

"The book of names?" 

"No, the Black Book."

"Oh, that," Alec mumbled, frowning.

"Alec, where's the Book?" Izzy asked urgently. 

Alec didn't answer - he was lost somewhere inside his head again. Why hadn't he thought of that before? Valentine had told them that the Black Book was full of powerful spells - there had to be something in there other than the spell to summon Lilith, something that would fix this mess that he had made of everything. Luckily, he'd thought to bring it along with him, and it was right here in his jacket pocket. Then Jace started shaking him, and he shoved him away in annoyance, vaguely aware that Izzy wasn't in the room anymore.

"It's ok, you're gonna be fine. Izzy's gone to get help," Jace said.

Alec staggered to his feet, heading towards the stairs that led out of the basement, and Jace moved to block his way. 

"Hey, let's just wait for Izzy here. The Book is in your room, right?" Jace said.

"No, it's here," Alec said, patting his pocket. "Get out of my way, Jace. I need to fix this."

"Crap, you have it _here_?" Jace said uneasily. "Ok fuck, just stay put. Don't force me to knock you out."

Alec scowled and pushed Jace away with more force than necessary, but Jace pushed right back, using his magic to give him an extra boost, and slammed Alec backwards into the wall so hard that it knocked the air out of his lungs. 

"Come on, man, settle down. You can't even stand straight, stop trying to fight me. I don't want to hurt you by accident," Jace said. 

Alec shook his head. "Just because I don't like to use magic against you, doesn't mean I can't."

Alec threw his hand out and Jace's eyes widened in surprise, not having expected Alec to really attack him. Alec sent Jace flying across the room, using his magic to pin him against the wall like a butterfly. He could feel Jace struggling to break free, but he got there before Jace could break out of his hold and tapped Jace's forehead with two fingers; Jace's eyes rolled backwards in his head and he slumped to the floor, knocked out cold. 

"I'm really sorry," Alec mumbled as he backed away and stumbled towards the stairs.

 

 

Instead of going home, Alec went to Lightwood House. He knew there were wards around the place that would warn his mother if he used a lot of magic inside the walls of the house, but she should be asleep now and if he was quick about it she wouldn't find out until he was done. He stole Izzy's box of magic supplies from her room and barricaded himself inside his old bedroom, casting powerful warding spells around that would take even his mom and Izzy some time to break through. Satisfied that he wouldn't be disturbed, he took out the Black Book and started flipping eagerly through the mildewed pages, but his hope soon turned into despair and disgust. The spells in the Book were powerful, yes, but all of them were clearly dark spells - spells to make people see things that weren't there, spells that would allow one to control the minds and bodies of others, and spells to raise and control the dead. There were curses that could cause the most gruesome of deaths, spells that would allow one to steal the youth and lifeforce of another to temporarily prolong one's own life, and spells to summon all kinds of demons - from minor demons like imps to more dangerous beings like incubi, and Lilith herself, of course. Alec threw the book onto the floor, wiping his hands on his jeans and feeling like he'd never get them clean again.

"You're giving up?" a voice that sounded eerily like his own asked. "Maryse Trueblood didn't raise a quitter."

"Shut up. You're not real," Alec bit out, clutching his head as his headache slammed back in full force. He caught sight of his own reflection in the narrow full-length mirror in a corner of the room, and didn't even have the energy to feel surprised when he saw that it was smirking at him. 

"You need to pull yourself together if you want to fix this. Don't you want to get Magnus back?"

"There's no fixing this. I should've told him the truth," Alec said miserably. 

"What difference would it have made? You heard what he said about his mother despising black magic," his reflection in the mirror said. "You know that if he knew how you got your powers, he wouldn't want anything to do with you anyway."

"Then what do you suggest? That I should cast a mind-control spell on him to make him love me?" Alec asked sarcastically.

"Oh, come on. Think a little bigger," his reflection said impatiently. "You just need one more sacrifice to complete the Reaping - maybe Dot, she's always flirting with Magnus. Complete it and summon Lilith right now on your own, then ask The Lady for a boon. You could ask for Magnus' eternal devotion and more powers - anything your heart desires."

"How would that even work? The Reaping is payment for the deal that we already have with her," Alec said with a frown. 

His reflection shrugged, and even the way that it did it was all wrong - like someone else who just happened to be wearing his face. "Well, if the rest of them still want to keep their covenant with the Lady, they'll just have to start all over again, won't they?" 

"Start all over? You mean put another thirty-three people up for the Reaping?" Alec asked, aghast. 

"What does it matter to you? You'll have what _you_ want, with very little effort," his reflection said, leaning forward. "So what's it going to be?"

 

\--

 

Magnus and Clary were on their way back to the Coffeen Brew when a car came screeching down the empty road towards them, and Magnus pulled Clary behind him by instinct before they realised that it was just Izzy. She looked between the two of them, looking a bit hurt and confused, then pulled herself together.

"Magnus, I need your help. Alec's in trouble," she said urgently. 

"Tell me on the way," Magnus said, already getting into the car. "You'll be alright getting home on your own, Biscuit?"

Clary nodded quickly and Izzy stepped on the pedal, tearing down the street with complete disregard for traffic lights and signs. 

"What happened?" Magnus asked.

"Alec said not to tell you, but we were the ones in the tunnels that night. The place with the blood and the revenants," Izzy said, taking her eyes off the road briefly to glance at Magnus, and he nodded curtly to show that he understood. "We were trying to retrieve a spellbook, and I think there was a curse on it because Alec's been really ill, and at first we thought it was just the blood loss, but-"

"That was _his_ blood?" Magnus interrupted. "If he was that badly hurt why didn't anybody take him to the hospital?"

"Magnus, um... we're witches," Izzy said.

"Yes, I know that, but magic isn't like a superpower. You can relieve the pain and help the healing process along but you can't just _heal_ someone like that-" Magnus started to say, then stopped. "Oh god. What kind of witches are you?"

"Magnus, please don't freak out on me now," Izzy pleaded.

"I'm not freaking out," Magnus replied, internally freaking out. "Where is Alec?"

"I left him with Jace. My mom will _murder_ us if she finds out we took the Book, so I thought if we put it back where we found it Alec should get better and nobody needs to find out," Izzy said. Her phone started ringing in the backseat, and Magnus grabbed it for her before she killed them both trying to reach blindly for it while driving at breakneck speed.

"Jace? What do mean Alec's gone?" she gasped.

"Izzy, what the hell is going on?" Magnus asked, his voice strained as Izzy swerved sharply around a bend.

"I don't know, but Jace says it's like Alec's been possessed or something," she replied.

She drove them to a house that looked a lot like the Trueblood mansion, and both of them raced up the stairs to the third floor.

"Alec!" Izzy cried out, grabbing the door to Alec's bedroom, then flinching like she'd been burnt. "Magnus, don't touch the door, he's warded it." 

"Alexander, are you in there?" Magnus called out.

The only answer they got was the crash of breaking glass, followed by an inhuman scream.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

  

Magnus and Izzy exchanged horrified looks, but before they could attempt to force open the door, the door was opened by Alec himself. Alec's face was practically grey, his eyes a little unfocused, and looked about five seconds away from keeling over, but it was the expression on his face that broke Magnus' heart - a desperate mixture of hope and fear, like he wasn't sure they were really there and expected them to vanish the moment he blinked. Magnus smelled blood in the room and alcohol on his breath. 

"Alec, your hands," Izzy murmured.

"I broke a mirror," Alec said, trying to hide his lacerated hands behind his back. "Someone needs to go get Jace, I knocked him out."

"Don't worry, Jace is fine, he's on his way here. He was the one who suggested that you might come here, actually," Izzy said.

Magnus glanced at the room behind Alec, and noticed that it wasn't just Alec's hands that were bleeding - there were bloody footprints on the floor, leading away from a layer of silvery glass shards in the far corner of the room. There was also a blood-stained piece of mirror about the width of his palm pinning something black to the floor - a book?

"Is that the spellbook you took from the tunnels?" Magnus asked.

"Don't touch it," Alec warned him immediately. "It kind of... gets inside your head."

"And you've gotten your blood all over it. On a cursed object," Magnus said in horror. 

"Shit, is that how it got Alec? I had Alec's blood on my hands when I was handling the Book," Izzy said, eyes wide.

"It's not your fault, Iz. My hands were bloody too, plus I put the Book right next to my bed. It could have been anything," Alec said.

"But you should be ok once we put the Book back, right?" Izzy asked anxiously. 

"I'm fine now, I think," Alec said hesitantly. "It was trying to make me do stuff but I heard your voices and it helped me break out of it."

Magnus shook his head, putting a hand on Alec's forehead. His skin was clammy, his eyes dull, and Alec was still clearly unwell. "Blood curses are complicated, and not so easily untangled. You may have managed to fight it off for now, but I think it still has a hold over you." 

"I'm going to call Mom," Izzy said, shushing Alec when he started to protest. "She'll already have felt you using all this magic." 

"Why don't I try first? After all, I seem to have had some luck with undoing that curse in the tunnels," Magnus suggested. "If it works, we can put the spellbook back, and you can dream up some excuse to tell your mother when she eventually gets here."

"I'm done with lying," Alec said quietly, looking Magnus in the eye. "No more lies from here out." 

"Let's get out of this room first, away from the Book. I'll help Alec with all his injuries, and maybe Magnus can see if he can find all the things he needs from my supplies?" Izzy suggested. 

 

 

They moved Alec to the room down the hall and Magnus carried the heavy box out of the room, careful to give the spellbook a wide berth, but even though Izzy had labelled everything neatly, most of the herbs and things were completely foreign to him. Besides, Magnus didn't have his mother's book with him and he didn't have any of her recipes memorised by heart, so he supposed he would just have to follow his instincts, which seemed to be serving him well so far. When he went to check on Alec and Izzy, he noticed that all the cuts on Alec's hands and feet had miraculously healed up completely and Alec was suddenly sober, but decided not to bring it up.

"I'll go prepare for our trip into the tunnels," Izzy said. The moment Izzy left the room, the tension in the room rose a notch. 

Magnus squared his shoulders. He could be professional about this - this was exactly the same as treating any patient, and personal feelings were irrelevant right now. "Take off your shirt. I think it might be easier with skin to skin contact."

Alec obeyed his instructions, then cleared his throat. "Thank you for coming. You didn't have to."

Magnus had just begun sweeping his hands down the broad expanse of Alec's back, and his movements faltered as a sharp pang went through his heart. "Did we break up without me noticing?"

"No! I just... I know you're still mad at me." 

"And what, just because I'm angry with you, you think I've stopped caring about you?" 

"Fuck, I'm making a mess of this," Alec muttered, running a hand over his face. "What I mean is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I lied to you about the tunnels and the magic. You told me the truth about your mom and your abilities, and I know it was a big secret to trust me with, but I wasn't brave enough to tell you the truth about me as well, and I'm sorry."

Magnus hummed non-committally, neither accepting nor rejecting Alec's apology, but resumed his examination of Alec. "And what about asking me out because you wanted 'keep an eye' on me?" 

"Um. We knew someone powerful had just moved into Salem, because you kinda blocked out half the city with your protection spell." 

"I  _what_?" Magnus asked, stopping again. 

Alec shrugged. "Maybe you didn't do it on purpose. The last time someone that powerful came around who wasn't one of the five families, he married Jocelyn Fairchild and he was the one who stole Clary's magic." 

"Are you saying that Clary's magic was stolen by her  _father_?" Magnus said, aghast, then asked, "What makes you think that I won't turn out like him?" 

"Because you're a good person," Alec replied, and turned around to face him. "Magnus, I don't know what I can do or say to get you to believe me, but all that pretend-dating stuff was before I got to know you. I promise you I wasn't faking it."

"Obviously. Nobody can resist my charms for long," Magnus said airily, although Alec's words had eased his heartache considerably. He nudged Alec to turn back to the front. "Stop moving around, I barely know what I'm doing."

There was a strange star-shaped birthmark on Alec's shoulder, but when Magnus lingered on it, Alec just shook his head.

"I was born with that, Magnus. You can't fix that," he said quietly.

Magnus moved on to the back of Alec's neck and head, then to the front of his body. Even though Magnus was trying to be clinical about his examination, Alec breathed in sharply and held his breath when Magnus placed his hands on his abs, moving up to his chest, throat, face, and forehead.

"I think there's something here," Magnus finally said, indicating the point just under Alec's ribs. It was like a poisoned, many-pronged hook lodged inside Alec's body, spiralling and spreading its corruption. "Can you feel it?"

Alec nodded. 

"I'll pull, and you push," Magnus said, closing his eyes to get a better feel of the shape of the curse. He placed his right palm flat on Alec's solar plexus and braced the other on Alec's back. "Ready?"

"Ready," Alec replied.

Magnus tried to get a grip on the curse and pulled - except that the thing had teeth, and it turned on him as well. He wasn't prepared for it; it got hold of him for a split second, and images flashed in his head, of him kneeling beside his mother's body on the sidewalk, of his rage and hate and the urge to destroy. There was a monster in the mirror and the monster was _him_ , but Alec pushed him away and the hold of the curse faded. Magnus blinked in surprise, then reached out to pull Alec in again. 

"Magnus, let go. I'm not worth it," Alec grunted.

"Yes, you are," Magnus said through gritted teeth, straining to stop the curse from burrowing deeper into Alec while avoiding its attempts to get its hooks in him as well. "Alexander, come on, fight it! I can't do this alone!"  

Alec's fingertips dug into Magnus' arms hard enough to bruise, and Magnus felt the exact moment that Alec expelled the curse from his body. Alec's cry was echoed by an unearthly scream from Alec's room down the hallway, and Alec slumped into Magnus' arms, shivering and sweaty. Then there were footsteps pounding the hallway, and the door flew open. 

"Oh fuck," Jace blurted out, closing the door again immediately. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt anything!" he called through the door. 

"Did Jace think we were having sex?" Magnus muttered incredulously, and Alec let out a loud snort of laughter. It was a very welcome sound. He pulled away a little to take a better look at Alec and was glad to see that there was more colour in his cheeks now, and that his eyes were bright and alert again.

"Magnus, I'm so sorry," Alec said softly. 

Magnus brushed Alec's fringe from his forehead. "Apology accepted. But just so you know, I'm still kind of mad at you."

Alec swallowed hard and squared his shoulders as if he was bracing himself for a blow. "I know, and you have every right to be. If you still want to know, I'll tell you everything." 

Magnus was reminded of Clary's words and the powers Alec and his family were apparently capable of. Within the space of a few days, his life had become very strange indeed, and considering he could see ghosts and his mother had been a witch doctor, that was really saying something. He had a distinct feeling that he was in way over his head, but he couldn't walk away from Alec either. 

"I'm going to hold you to that promise. But right now apparently I have to go put a cursed book back in the sewers," Magnus said, making a face. Alec looked a little panicked at that and started to protest, but Magnus shook his head and made soothing noises. "I'll be fine. I went in alone the first time, but I'll have your siblings with me now. We'll take care of each other. You can't go with us in this state, Alexander."

"I suppose I should stay here to deal with my mom," Alec finally relented.

"Good plan. You stay here and rest while we get rid of the spellbook, and then I'm going home to get some sleep because I have a quiz tomorrow _and_ I promised Dot that I would help her set up her table at the fair for Halloween this weekend. But I'll ask Raph for the day off and come back here to you after that, if it's ok for me to come over. How's that sound?"

"Ok. Be careful," Alec said.

Magnus leaned forward and kissed Alec briefly but firmly on the lips. "Try not to get stabbed or possessed again while I'm gone."

 

\--

  

After Magnus and Izzy had gone off, Alec cleaned up the glass and blood in his old room but found that he couldn't stay in a place where the Book's corruption still seemed to linger, so he grabbed all his stuff and moved out to the room down the hall. He should probably have tried to sleep but his mother would probably be here any moment now, and Magnus, Izzy, and Jace were off doing something insanely dangerous and he wasn't _there_ with them. He took a shower to clear his head and came out to find Jace setting a tray of food on the table.

"Why are you here? Didn't you go with Izzy and Magnus?" Alec asked in surprise.

"Izzy said they had it covered. I was supposed to stay here to make sure you were really ok and weren't going to go psycho on us again," Jace said with a shrug. "Grilled cheese and canned soup? I don't think we have the stuff here for making anything fancy, unless you want me to try cooking Izzy's frozen seagull or whatever roadkill she's got stashed away in the freezer."

"Thanks. Are you ok? I'm sorry about knocking you out," Alec said.

"Nah, it's fine," Jace said, waving away Alec's apology. "I know that wasn't really you. There's no way you could have beat me if the Book wasn't giving you a boost."

Alec rolled his eyes at Jace. But he hadn't realised how hungry he was until he smelled the food, and barely managed to sit down before he started wolfing everything down. 

"When was the last time you ate anything?" Jace asked with a frown.

"Lunch in school."  

"That book really did a number on you, huh?" Jace commented. 

Alec shrugged. "It didn't have total control over everything I did. But it knew everything I was afraid of and hated about myself and made every mistake I'd made replay in a loop inside my head until I couldn't hear myself think, and the more hopeless everything felt, the less I fought it." 

"Oh boy. And you being you, that was probably a motherlode of self-loathing," Jace said. Alec glared at him but Jace was unperturbed. "Just keeping it real, man," Jace said, then cleared his throat. "So, about Magnus... everything ok?"

"For now," Alec replied with a hollow laugh. "He's probably going to run screaming once I tell him about the deal with Lilith."

"I don't know, he seems to be rolling with it," Jace said. "For all you know, he really might be the answer to breaking the deal with Lilith. He might not be experienced, but this seems to be kind of his area."

Alec frowned, thinking it through as he ate his food. Magnus had said that his mother had been a witch doctor specialising in fighting black magic, which would have made her the perfect mentor - if only they had a way of calling on her for advice. He didn't think Magnus would appreciate them trying to pull his mom back from her eternal rest the way they had Valentine, though. But thinking about Valentine had made him think about Clary and the Fairchilds, and something clicked into place.

"The Book tried to tempt me into summoning Lilith. It said that once the Reaping was complete, Lilith could be summoned at any time - not necessarily on Halloween," Alec said. "I think that's why Jocelyn and Jonathan have been so dedicated to completing the Reaping quickly." 

"You think they're going to summon her once the Reaping is complete?" Jace asked.

"Yeah, to make a new deal, and screw the rest of us over, because then we'd have nothing to offer Lilith when she came to claim her end of the original bargain," Alec replied. "I wonder if Jocelyn was extra upset when she thought someone was trying to get the Book because _she_ wanted it too. It's lucky she didn't realise that we had it, because I don't think we could have fought both her and Jonathan off." 

"Shit. What if they get hold of Izzy and Magnus now?" Jace asked, eyes wide.

They were both on their feet in an instant, but their phones went off with messages from Izzy, and Alec received a message from Magnus as well.

"Huh. She says they're done. That's quick," Jace said skeptically, already dialling Izzy's number. 

Alec called Magnus, and was immensely relieved when Magnus picked up. "Magnus, are you and Izzy alright?"

" _We're both alright. We tried to sneak into the tunnels through the basement of a bank, which was just one street away, and we were caught by some guy called Hodge, but your sister says he's a family friend? We gave the Book to him, he says he's the one who was supposed to guard it anyway so he knows a safer way to put it back._ "

"Ok, yeah. Hodge can be trusted," Alec said in relief. "Good night. See you later." 

"Checks out," Jace said. "Izzy's on her way back."

Then they heard a car in the driveway, the driver slamming the door so hard that they heard it from the third storey. 

"That can't be Izzy," Jace muttered. 

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Maryse burst into the room looking like she'd gotten out of bed in a hurry and pulled on a pair of jeans to go with the t-shirt she wore to sleep. "Are you ok? Where is Izzy?" she demanded.

Alec exchanged a look with Jace, and took a deep breath. "About that..."

  

\--

 

Dot had been worried about Magnus, they'd all been. She'd thought he was a bit nuts when he taken on a second part-time job, but Cat said he'd always been like that, pushing himself a little too hard. When he'd started dating Alec Lightwood, it was clear that even though he was really wearing himself thin, he was much happier than he'd been when he'd just arrived in Salem, still mourning his mother. He'd been sad again over the last couple of days, probably fighting with Alec over something or other, and Dot wasn't surprised because the Lightwoods had always been a bit odd, but today Magnus had been all smiles again even though the coffee he'd made for himself was so strong that just the smell of the fumes wafting from his cup was enough to make her eyes water.

"All done," Magnus told her when he'd finished setting up the tables and chairs and hanging up the banner for her booth. 

"Thank you," she said. She put her hand on his arm when she went on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, and made an appreciative sound at the feel of his firm muscles under her fingertips. "Ooh. What are you dressing up as for Halloween? I hope it's something that involves you being shirtless."

Magnus laughed. "I don't think I'm dressing up this year. Alec doesn't like drawing attention to himself, I think it'd make him uncomfortable."

"You do you, and if he can't deal with your fabulousness he can go be a stick-in-the-mud somewhere else," Dot declared.

"It's fine, Dot," Magnus said with a smile. "Can I leave my bag here? I'm just going to return this ladder to Raph before I go." 

While Magnus was gone, Dot laid out the table cloth and put up the placard that informed customers that all proceeds from her tarot card readings and palm readings would be donated to a local orphanage. She was just taking out her tarot cards from her bag when she heard a voice behind her.  

"You do know that Magnus belongs to someone else, right?"

Dot jumped and spun around. "Oh, Jonathan. I didn't see you there," she greeted him, plastering on a smile. As a Danvers local and Clary's friend since high school, she knew who he was, but he'd always given her the creeps. "I know that Magnus is dating Alec, yes. But he doesn't _belong_ to him."

Jonathan smiled serenely at her, sat down in the chair opposite hers, and slotted a fifty-dollar note into the money box on the table. "I think I would like to see what the future holds for me, please."

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

"See you tomorrow!" Simon called after Magnus cheerfully as he made his way to the door.

Magnus yawned as he nodded, only to waylaid by Clary. "Everything alright with you and Alec now?" she asked him in a low voice.

"Yeah, mostly," Magnus said with a smile. 

"Good," Clary said earnestly. "Um, say 'hi' to Izzy for me. I mean, to all of them."

"Will do," Magnus said, then dropped his voice to add, "For what it's worth, I think you should ask her out. Just because it's complicated doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a shot."

Clary smiled and shrugged. "Maybe after Halloween."

"What's happening on Halloween?" Magnus asked, suddenly remembering that Alec had said that he had a "family thing" going on. In light of recent events, that was sounding a lot more ominous than some cute family tradition of watching horror movies together or something, which was what Magnus had initially assumed it was about.

"He hasn't told you?" Clary asked hesitantly. 

"Well, he promised to tell me today."

"Ok," Clary said, then impulsively hugged him. "Please give Alec a chance." 

Magnus' brows furrowed, but he nodded. "Of course."

Magnus' emotions were all in a jangle from Clary's words and probably too much caffeine when he stepped out of the Coffeen Brew, and it wasn't helped by the fact that the first thing he noticed when he neared Dot's booth was that she already had a customer, and it was Jonathan Fairchild. He froze for a moment - he wasn't supposed to know that Jonathan was a witch, and from what he'd gathered he was also pretty certain that Jonathan wasn't one of the good witches like Alec and his family. He didn't trust Jonathan around Dot.

Magnus schooled his expression to hide his anxiousness before he strolled up to the booth. "Hey," he greeted them both. 

Dot looked relieved to see him, but Jonathan didn't seem uncomfortable, and if he was up to no good surely he would have had some reaction to being caught out. Magnus relaxed a little - perhaps he was getting a bit paranoid.  

"Hello, Magnus. I'm getting my fortune told," Jonathan said. "I hear Dot is very accurate."

Magnus frowned. Did that mean that Dot had some sort of magic too? He'd never really taken her claims seriously, figuring that she was just kidding. Dot smiled politely at Jonathan's comment. 

"Do you want to witness a demonstration of my awesome powers?" she asked Magnus in an attempt at a spooky voice, gesturing with a flourish. Anyone else would have assumed she was just joking around, but Magnus knew Dot well enough to understand that she was pleading him to stay for a while because she was uncomfortable with Jonathan.

"Sure," Magnus said, settling in the chair next to her.

"So, as I was telling Jonathan, the card that he's holding is his significator - representing himself in this reading," Dot explained. "Jonathan had a question that he wanted an answer to, so I had him shuffle the deck of cards while thinking very hard about his question, and these three other cards that he's drawn represent the past or the root of the problem, the present situation, and the future or the desired outcome," she said, pointing out the cards from right to left.

Dot flipped open the first card on her right - it bore the image of the Devil, with a naked man and woman chained to the pedestal under his feet. "The Devil is not a bad card to have in this position," she hurriedly assured Jonathan. "It represents addiction, base desires, vices - but those are all in the past now."

Next, she flipped the middle card open, and Magnus had to say it didn't look like a positive card either - it showed a tower being struck by lightning, and people falling from the top of it, presumably to their deaths. 

"Um." Dot tried to smile reassuringly at Jonathan. "The Tower means..."

"Sudden catastrophe," Jonathan filled in, although he seemed unaffected by the future the cards were foretelling for him. "I know my tarot cards, Dot."

"Yes, but that's not always a bad thing. Things may seem bleak now, but sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to rise," she said, and quickly flipped the last card open, the card that indicated the future.

It showed the image of the Grim Reaper riding on a white horse - Death. 

"There, you see - with death comes resurrection. New beginnings!" Dot said with forced brightness. "Sometimes when a reading seems a bit vague, we can add other cards to try to clarify what they mean."

Magnus didn't think the cards needed any clarification, but Dot was obviously freaked out by the reading and was perhaps trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure Jonathan. She took the topmost card from the deck on the table and placed it face-up on the Death card, but it was just another Death card.

"What? That's not possible," Dot said, frowning, and put down the next card, but it was Death again. "I swear the deck isn't rigged, I'm not trying to scare you. There shouldn't be more than one Death card in the deck," Dot told Jonathan distractedly, reaching for another card. 

Magnus' attention had been on the deck of cards, but he glanced up and saw the gleam in Jonathan's eye, and he knew something was wrong. "Dot, stop!"

Dot put down the card in her hand, the third extra card she'd drawn, to show the now-familiar image of the Grim Reaper, and suddenly started choking. Her eyes bulged as she clutched her throat, and Magnus leaned forward to put one hand on Dot's back and one on her abdomen. Sure enough, he sensed a dark magic curse lodged inside her, but it felt even more powerful than the thing that had possessed Alec from the spellbook. Magnus closed his eyes and tried to get a grasp on it, but it was growing too fast, spreading through Dot's body like poison. 

Jonathan stood up from his seat and put the card that he'd been holding in his hand on the table. An angel was blowing a trumpet, summoning the dead rising out of their graves - Judgement. 

"Take back whatever you did to her. She's got nothing to do with whatever is going on," Magnus demanded. 

Jonathan smiled. "I've seen the way she acts around you. She should have known better to touch something that doesn't belong to her, and now she has been judged. Alec will explain everything to you in good time, and you will understand," he said. "Besides, there is no reversing a Reaping."

Dot went into another horrible choking fit and blood started to seep out from her nose, distracting Magnus briefly, and when he looked up Jonathan had already walked away, disappearing into the crowd that was gathering around them in concern for Dot. 

Magnus swore under his breath, then called out, "Someone please help me get Ragnor Fell from the Salem Museum, tell him it's an emergency! No, we don't need a hospital." Magnus helped Dot onto her feet. "Let's get you home." He had a feeling he would be needing his mother's things for this. 

 

 

With Ragnor driving and Magnus using his magic to try to slow down the spread of the curse, they managed to get Dot home within a few minutes. Ragnor had messaged Alec on Magnus' behalf and called Catarina on the way to tell her to clear a space in the middle of the living room by pushing all the furniture against the walls, and Catarina was already waiting anxiously for them at the door.

"Oh my god," Catarina gasped in horror when she saw the state Dot was in. Dot had more than a bloody nose now - there was blood trickling from her mouth, eyes, and ears as well. "Why didn't you take her to the hospital?" she demanded.

"A hospital isn't going to be any help." Magnus took a deep breath. "Cat, you knew that my mother used to have weird visitors. The truth is-"

"You're a witch, and your mother was a witch," Ragnor filled in. "Oh, we always knew there was something special about you, and it only makes sense that Salem would be the place to force it all to come to a head. Less talk, more doing - what do you need us to help with?"

Catarina had also carried down the _keris_ and Magnus' mother's box according to his instructions, and while Magnus flipped desperately through his mother's book, Catarina and Ragnor tried to put Dot in a sitting position on the floor. Catarina had shut Chairman Meow upstairs in Magnus' bedroom so the cat wouldn't get in the way, but the cat slunk into the room quietly just as Magnus finally found something that looked like it might work. He got Catarina to help grind up the dry ingredients with a mortar and pestle, just matching the recipe in his mother's book to the labels on the boxes and bottles, since most of the things were items they didn't recognise - leaves, seeds, shells, small bones, and some sort of dried lichen. Following his gut, he had Cat add a handful of the seeds from the apples Bridget Bishop's ghost had given him as well. In the meantime, he instructed Ragnor to mix up the wet ingredients - something Magnus' mother had labelled "corpse oil", a bottle of yellow liquid that had a black thing inside that nobody wanted to examine too closely because it looked like a very small human finger, as well as, for some reason, aloe vera gel, the kind that could be bought at any pharmacy for relieving sunburns. The last ingredient was his own blood, and Magnus used the pointed tip of the _keris_ to pierce his fingertip so he could add a few drops of blood in the mixture, before quickly mixing it all up by hand into a sort of paste. 

By now Dot was barely conscious and obviously in a great deal of pain. Magnus smeared a generous line of the paste on Dot's forehead, then covered one hand liberally with the mixture and pulled up the back of her shirt so that he could put his palm flat on her back. He could feel the paste warming up under his palm, drawing the curse to one place so it would be easier for him to expel it. There was a chant that his mother had written to go with the recipe, but his mother had also explained that the chant was just a way to help the _dukun_ find their focus. Besides, Magnus had grown up in New York, not Indonesia, and he didn't think it would help for him to try to fumble his way through with his half-forgotten grasp of the language. Magnus closed his eyes, gathering his strength for the push, and it was only then that he realised that he could feel something coming from Ragnor and Catarina as well, faint sources of energy. Was it because they, too, had magic, or was it just because of the bonds of love and friendship that they had with Dot? Magnus couldn't tell, but he knew that they would be stronger together. 

"Hold onto her, and don't let go no matter what happens," Magnus told Catarina and Ragnor. 

Catarina and Ragnor nodded and grabbed Dot by her arms, and only then did Magnus let his magic flood into Dot. At first, there was a great resistance against it, but with Ragnor and Catarina on either side of her boosting Magnus' efforts, Magnus felt his magic force out some of the curse, and Dot immediately spat out a mouthful of blood - and maggots. Ragnor recoiled a little but held his place. With the next push, Dot retched out another mangled lump of blood, flesh, and writhing maggots, then threw her head back and let out an ear-piercing scream, her eyes rolling backwards in her head until all that could be seen were the whites of her eyes. All of them flinched and Chairman hissed, but Magnus could feel how close he was to freeing Dot.

"Get the fuck out of her!" Magnus bit out, and shoved the last vestiges of his magic at her.

Dot doubled over and vomited out another chunk of blood and maggots, then started to gasp and sob. Magnus backed off so that he could sit with his back against the wall, feeling exhausted to the bone, and Chairman came up to him to curl in his lap. Catarina held her girlfriend in her arms, trying to comfort her, but Dot was still crying and coughing up blood.

"What's wrong, baby? Does it still hurt?" Catarina asked Dot anxiously, but Dot just shook her head with increasing violence, and they realised that she was having some sort of fit or seizure. 

"Magnus, I think she may be going into shock!" Catarina cried out, turning to Magnus pleadingly. 

But healing Dot wasn't the kind of magic Magnus was capable of. He had a feeling it was too late to bring Dot to the hospital, but they had to try anyway. He had just managed to stumble to his feet when the door flew open and Alec burst into the room. Chairman Meow arched its back and hissed at Alec but he ignored the cat, looking around and taking everything in, then quickly crouched down next to Dot. 

"Don't worry, she's going to be ok," he said as he placed his hands on Dot's stomach and back, brows furrowed in concentration. Dot sucked in a sharp breath and immediately stopped coughing and spasming.

"I'm ok," she finally croaked out.

Alec let go of her and looked up, and Magnus almost wished that he could make himself believe that it was just his mind playing tricks on him after a very, very long week - Alec's eyes were fully black with no whites at all. It was clear that Alec knew what they were all seeing, and even with those nightmarish eyes in his face, Magnus could tell that it was _Alec_ who was terrified of Magnus' reaction now that he had been confronted so bluntly with the truth of what Alec was. 

Catarina gasped and tried to put herself between Alec and Dot to shield her, and Ragnor picked up the _keris_ from the floor to brandish it at Alec. 

"Stay away from Magnus. Stay away from all of us," Ragnor said firmly.

"Ragnor, it's ok. He's still Alec," Magnus said, his voice sounding surprisingly more steady than he felt, because the world was starting to tilt sideways alarmingly. 

"Magnus? Magnus!" 

Magnus saw Alec rushing forward to catch him, and then there was nothing but darkness. 

  

\--

 

It had taken some convincing to get all of them to move to the Trueblood manor, especially with Ragnor so mistrustful of his intentions, but eventually their worry for Magnus and Alec's logic that it would be easier to keep everyone together so they only had to defend one place had won out. Alec had put Magnus in his new room, since his old one had been warded and probably still stank of burnt sage from when his mom and Izzy had tried to clear the influence of the Book, and while the rest of his family reinforced the grounds, Alec sat in a chair by Magnus' bedside, watching over him. Ragnor hadn't been happy about leaving Alec alone with Magnus but he was less comfortable still with leaving Catarina and Dot alone in the big gloomy house, even with Maryse attempting to put them at ease. Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on who you were asking - Alec and Magnus hadn't been left completely unchaperoned because Chairman Meow was sitting on the ancient rolltop desk in the corner of the room, its tail swishing in agitation and gaze fixed unblinkingly on Alec in a distinctively hostile manner.

Maryse had checked on Magnus when Alec had carried him in, and she'd declared it a simple case of magical exhaustion from the effort it must have taken to free both Alec and Dot from powerful curses in the last two days. Catarina had agreed that Magnus' vitals seemed fine, and Magnus should be waking up any moment now. Alec reached over to brush Magnus' fringe off his forehead, and Chairman let out a low warning mew. 

Alec sighed. "You're not an ordinary cat, are you? You're a familiar," Alec accused the Chairman. "His mom summoned you to watch out for him, or you latched onto him because you could sense his gift."

The Chairman flattened its ears and swung its tail more violently, and Alec supposed that since the cat seemed to be able to understand him that was a sort of confirmation. 

"I'm not going to hurt him. Have I done anything so far that suggests that I mean him any harm?" 

The Chairman glared balefully at him, unimpressed.

"What, you think this is my fault? Ok, actually that's fair, it kind of is," Alec muttered.

"Alexander, are you arguing with my cat?"

Alec's first instinct was to kiss Magnus and pull him into a tight hug, but he remembered that Magnus had only just seen his eyes before he'd passed out and was just planning to help Magnus sit up. But Magnus tugged him closer by the front of his shirt so that he could kiss him properly, and Alec ended up practically sitting in his lap.

"Is this your room?" Magnus asked. 

"Not really," Alec replied, wondering if maybe Magnus just hadn't remembered what he'd seen yet.  

"Where's everyone else? How did I get here?" 

"Ragnor is two doors down. Cat and Dot are in the room next to his," Alec said. "And I carried you up from the car."

"You _carried_ me up?" Magnus asked incredulously. 

"Magic," Alec pointed out. 

Magnus frowned. Alec saw a flicker of something in Magnus' eyes, and he looked a little closer at Alec, his gaze going from one eye to the other. Alec held his breath. 

"How's Dot?" 

"Ok. Shaken. I think she's sleeping."

Magnus hummed and nodded, but he still had his arms around Alec's waist and didn't pull away. "So... can you heal any injury?"

Alec decided to go for brutal honesty. "Yes, everything short of bringing people back from the dead. Or at least we can't bring them back the way that they were, but we can turn them into revenants. We can purge substances from our body as well, like poison." 

"Or alcohol," Magnus muttered. "What else can you do?" 

Alec took a deep breath and turned the lights on with a thought. "Move things and recognise other people with magic - those are pretty basic. With the right spells we can make people see things that aren't there, control their thoughts and actions, summon the dead..."

"Your eyes didn't go black when you did that just now," Magnus observed. 

"Not for small things, no," Alec said, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

"I'm guessing you get your powers from some kind of... _hantu raya_ ," Magnus said. 

Alec blinked. "A what?"  

"Sometimes people would come to my mom because they were being harassed by a demon, only to find out that their parent or grandparent had made a deal for good luck or special powers and conveniently forgot to mention it before dying, so the demon had come to them demanding payment because the deal had been passed on to them. It's called a legacy deal - _saka_ ," Magnus explained. "And black magic like that gets stronger the longer it's left unchecked, so I can only imagine that a 300-year-old deal is going to be pretty powerful." 

"Do you mean you know how to get rid of it?" Alec asked, trying not to get his hopes up. 

"There might be something in my mom's book," Magnus said. "Did you bring it?" 

"Yeah, we brought the whole box, and the wavy dagger thing as well," Alec said quickly, already trying to get up from Magnus' lap, but Magnus pulled him back down.

"Jonathan said something about a 'Reaping'. Was that what happened to Dot? She was supposed to be a human sacrifice to this demon?" 

"Thirty-three people every thirty-six years, by Halloween. That's almost three hundred people we have murdered," Alec said quietly. 

"Not  _you_. The people who came before you, yes, but not you," Magnus corrected him. 

Alec shook his head. "I tried to stop it but I failed, so it comes down to the same thing. Dot would have been the thirty-third victim this year." 

"Oh, Alexander," Magnus sighed, cupping Alec's face until he met his eyes. "You can't try to carry everything on your shoulders. And _I_ think you're incredibly brave for risking the wrath of all the other witches to try to fight a centuries-old family legacy to stop the demon that gave you your powers." 

Magnus pulled him in for another kiss, and this time Alec sank into it with an immense sense of relief. He'd bared all his darkest secrets to Magnus but by some miracle Magnus had chosen to stay anyway, and for the first time he felt he could give in fully to the moment. Magnus moaned softly in surprise when Alec deepened the kiss, but they were rudely interrupted by a sharp meow from the Chairman. Alec broke off from the kiss and turned to the cat in exasperation, only to find that it wasn't looking at them, but out of the window. Alec strained his ears, trying to figure out what had caught the cat's attention, but all was quiet, although that didn't necessarily mean that they were safe. 

"What's wrong?" Magnus asked. 

"Magnus, what you did, reversing the Reaping curse - nobody has ever done that," Alec told him. "When you reversed the curse, I felt it like a punch to my gut, all of us did. I don't know what that means for the Reaping, and I don't know if they're going to try to get Dot again, but the rest of them are definitely coming for you - for _us_."

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

Alec came downstairs to find his family ready for war. Jace was lighting the candles and his mother was putting the finishing touches on the massive protective sigil she had drawn in the middle of the polished wooden floor of the main hall of their house using her own blood - the blood of the head of the household being the most potent ingredient for a protective spell of this scale. Izzy was seated in a corner scrying with her necklace, but gave up with a huff.

"They've hidden themselves from view," she reported.

"Then we can assume that they are on their way, if not already at our doorstep," Maryse said grimly. She looked up when she heard Alec's footsteps on the stairs. "How's Magnus?" 

"Exhausted but conscious. I've put them all in the TV room with Max, and put up all the extra wards," he replied. "But Magnus' cat is really agitated, even though there hasn't been a breach in the wards."

"Oh my god, that fucking cat. It tried to scratch my eyes out," Jace grumbled. 

Alec shrugged. At least the Chairman hadn't tried to do that to him, so he supposed he'd gotten off lucky. 

"Come. Take your places," Maryse said, beckoning to Alec. 

Alec took the place to his mother's right, Izzy took her left, and Jace took the place directly opposite Maryse. They closed their eyes and raised their hands skyward, and Alec could feel the house responding to them, to the blood running in their veins. There was no break in the circle of magic even though Jace was Maryse's child by intent but not by birth, and when Alec opened his eyes, he could see the relief on Jace's face that the house and the spell had accepted him as part of their family. 

"Brick and mortar, wood and stone. Protect our loves, protect our home," Maryse recited in a clear voice. Her children repeated it after her in unison, their voices rising in a chant that filled the house with warmth and light, and Alec could only hope that it would be enough.

 

\--

 

"So this is all we can do? Babysit the Mayor's son?" Ragnor asked Magnus in an undertone. 

"I don't think we're babysitting him, Ragnor. I think he's babysitting _us_ ," Magnus said wryly. 

Max Lightwood hadn't spoken a word to them since Alec had introduced his baby brother and left them to go do some serious magic downstairs. Magnus wondered if Max was sulking - if Max was anything like his siblings, he was probably raring to go save the world with them and hated being left out of the "fun". He was sitting far away from all of them, supposedly reading a comic book, but his gaze wasn't moving across the page even though he would occasionally flip to the next page.

Catarina and Dot were curled up on the couch with Dot's head on Catarina's lap as Catarina gently ran her fingers through her hair. The Lightwoods had been very welcoming to all their guests, and Dot had gone to school with them since she was in elementary school, but now that she knew what they were, she wasn't coping very well, and her gruesome brush with death hadn't helped matters. While Ragnor didn't trust all of them one bit, Catarina had taken things in her stride, trusting Magnus' judgement that the Lightwoods were alright, and between her and Magnus they were trying to keep Dot and Ragnor from bolting right out of the door. Magnus could understand their unease, because it felt a bit like the house had a presence of its own - not a hostile one, just something more than just cold brick. Max's presence and the fact that the Chairman couldn't seem to sit still and kept pacing in front of the windows restlessly was just adding to the tension in the room.

Magnus' discomfort came not so much from the unfamiliar surroundings or his friends' unhappiness at having to be trapped in a house with actual real-life witches. After all, where could they go? The Trueblood family home was the safest place for all of them now, with a powerful family of witches on their side to face-off all the other witches. Besides, he trusted Alec and by extension Alec's family, and now that he knew about the demonic origins of their magic, he could understand why it made his skin crawl and just ignore it. But the fact that he had to sit put in a room overloaded with protective spells, watched over by Alec's 14-year-old brother, and  _knowing_ that there was nothing he could do to help because he was exhausted and outclassed, was the worst thing he had to stomach.

In an attempt to feel less useless, he was studying his mother's book to try to find some way to break the _saka_ Alec's family had with the demon Lilith. After all, they were on a tight schedule if the blood moon on Halloween was the best time to break the deal - that was only two nights away. So far, he wasn't having much luck. There were a lot of recipes for cures for common ailments like rheumatism and some for the aches and pains associated with pregnancy and childbirth, protective spells, exorcism rituals and instructions for making _penangal balak_ , or good luck charms, as well as the ritual and incantation for reversing _santet_ , which was what Magnus had used for curing Dot. These were all the bread-and-butter tools of a _dukun_. There were also spells and recipes for questionable things like love potions and charms for increasing virility, which Magnus was sure his mother hadn't dealt in but had probably included as a sort of FYI thing just so Magnus knew these things existed, then a page on the _keris_ and its history as their family heirloom which Magnus had just skimmed through. When he came to the descriptions of supernatural creatures and ghosts, he was briefly hopeful, but the entry under _hantu raya_ just said that the _saka_ could only be removed with consent from the family it was bound to, and Magnus hoped it didn't mean all of them had to agree, because there was no way the rest of the witches would say yes. But there were no specific instructions, and there was nothing else in the book - just a few blank pages at the end. 

Magnus flipped through the book a second time, hoping that perhaps he'd missed a page because the paper was so thin that the pages might have gotten stuck together, then read the pages on demon exorcism more carefully, but didn't find anything that dealt with the Lightwoods' specific situation.

"No luck?" Ragnor asked. 

Magnus shook his head. "Maybe she didn't get a chance to finish the book before she died." 

Just then, they heard voices downstairs, and Magnus could feel all his hair standing on end from the magic being cast, even though he could tell that it was a protective spell. 

"Why isn't the boy downstairs helping them?" Ragnor whispered. Magnus shrugged. 

"Because they've already got four for the circle," Max replied, proving that he'd been listening in. 

"Doesn't a spell get stronger if there are more people casting it together?" Magnus asked. 

"Nope. Three to make a coven, but four to make a team; five to bring chaos, but to raise hell, thirteen," Max recited, as if it was some kind of nursery rhyme he'd heard growing up. Magnus' childhood had probably been very strange by most people's standards, and it was comforting to think that Alec's had probably been pretty weird too.

"Even numbers of witches are best for protective spells, and four is the most stable. Things go a bit crazy in odd numbers, and the larger the group the more unpredictable it gets," Max explained, looking at Magnus curiously. "That's like, the basics. How did you undo a Reaping but not know this stuff?" 

Magnus frowned. "Or maybe I _do_ know some of it, but I didn't realise that I did." 

Now that Max had mentioned it, Magnus remembered that although his mother worked alone, he had seen her get three family members of possessed victims to sit around the victim in a circle while she did her exorcism, with his mother taking the fourth place. He supposed there were some similarities despite their cultural differences, or some rules for magic were the same no matter where you were from. 

All of a sudden, the Chairman began to meow loudly, its eyes fixed on something outside the window. Magnus, Ragnor, and Max went up to the window to see what all the fuss was about. Four dark shapes were floating just above the tops of the trees and coming towards them, far too large to be birds. It took Magnus a while to register that they were _people_. 

 

\--

 

The first attack on the Trueblood house was enough to send all of them staggering. The Lightwoods had been prepared, since Max had messaged from upstairs to tell them that the other witches were coming, but they had barely managed to hold their places and the house shuddered, the chandelier that hung above their heads swaying precariously. The other witches were holding nothing back, and Alec knew that they meant to leave no survivors.

"Why the protective spell, Maryse? Do you have something to hide?" Jocelyn's disembodied voice echoed through the house, deceptively sweet.

Maryse laughed bitterly. "And I suppose the fact that you are trying to kill all of us means you've decided to stop hiding _your_ true colours."

"If a witch betrays her coven, she deserves death," another voice said - Stephen Herondale. Jace paled.

"We know everything now," Jocelyn said. "Your children stole the Black Book to try to break the covenant behind all our backs, but we know you're behind it - you never did forgive the rest of us for the death of your brother. And now you've reversed the last Reaping with the help of that other witch, and everything is ruined. The book of names refuses to take the thirty-third name, and the Reaping can't be completed."

Alec had to admit he was glad that Magnus had managed to do that. It was a great relief to know that they were one step closer to breaking the covenant with Lilith now that it would be impossible to fulfil their end of the bargain. 

"Maryse, be reasonable," a third voice said, which they recognised as Hodge. "What would all of us do without magic? Just give us the girl and hopefully if we kill her the book of names will still accept the sacrifice, and everything can go according to plan."

"Whose plan? Jocelyn's plan? Because she wants to use the Reaping to ask Lilith to restore Clary's powers. She never intended for the rest of us to keep our magic, Hodge," Maryse said. 

There were some muffled sounds of arguing outside, a scream that was cut off abruptly, then a tense silence. The Lightwoods exchanged worried looks, then a few things happened in quick succession: the silence was broken by a loud thump somewhere on the roof, and with it came a shockwave of magic that shattered the protective spell with enough force to knock all of them off their feet and throw them into the walls.

"What the hell was that?" Jace groaned, clutching his shoulder. 

" _Open lock, to the dead man's knock_ ," Maryse murmured, wincing as Alec rushed over to help her up. "They killed Hodge and used his death to break our warding."

The main door flew open with a bang, and Jocelyn, Stephen, and Jonathan walked in with their eyes already fully black, radiating power that had a very familiar signature, and Alec came to a horrible realisation that Hodge hadn't put the Book back in the tunnels - he'd handed it over to Jocelyn. 

"You can't win, Maryse. Not when we have the Book," Jocelyn said with a smirk, obviously drunk on power. 

Stephen looked at Jace, his lips curled in disdain. "I see you have picked your side, and it's just as well. I would rather have no son than a son like you."

"Yeah, well, you don't get to disown me, because I disowned you first. The Trueblood house accepted me," Jace shot back. 

"I can't believe you're doing this to Clary," Jonathan spoke up for the first time. "I thought we were friends! I thought you understood how important it was for us to get Clary back her magic, so that she would be whole again. How could you betray Clary and me like this?"

"She doesn't want it!" Izzy snapped. 

"Shut your mouth, you stupid girl. I won't let anybody get in the way of what is best for my children," Jocelyn said fiercely. She flicked her hand at Izzy, but Maryse blocked the hex with a gesture before it could even get close to Izzy. 

"That's not love, Jocelyn, that's you trying to twist everything to fit your idea of the perfect world, and you don't care who ends up paying the price," Maryse said coldly. "I won't let my children get hurt for the sake of your selfish schemes."

Jocelyn raised her hand against Maryse but Stephen was quicker, and his curse would have hit Maryse if Alec, Izzy, and Jace hadn't happened to send a flurry of counterspells at him at the same time. 

"You don't care about Clary, you don't care about anybody but yourself. Why the hell are you helping her?" Jace demanded. 

"The Lightwoods and Truebloods have been sitting at the top for long enough while I'm forced to wallow in _real estate_ ," Stephen said with a sneer. "I think it's time the town had a new Mayor." 

He summoned up another ball of magic and flung it their way at the same time that Jocelyn and Maryse began to rain curses on each other, and all hell broke loose. While Jocelyn and Maryse went head to head with each other, Alec, Jace, and Izzy took on Stephen. It soon became clear that with the power of the Book behind Jocelyn, Maryse was barely holding her own against her, and even with the three siblings taking on Stephen together, he was more experienced and ruthless than they were. The windows exploded and the lightbulbs and crystal in the chandelier shattered in showers of sparks and glass, and the whole house trembled with the force of the magic that they were using against each other. More than once Alec only managed to deflect or avoid a hit by the skin of his teeth. But even in the chaos, Alec noticed that Jonathan was just standing in a corner out of the way of the fighting with his eyes closed, and he exactly who Jonathan was hexing. 

He hated to have to leave Izzy and Jace to handle Stephen, but there was no way Max was a match for Jonathan, and Magnus and his friends were in danger. Alec started to move upstairs, but Jonathan headed him off. 

"Alec, come on. We both know you're not going to win this fight," Jonathan said. "Besides, it's just Dot and the other two I'm after, not Magnus. Don't tell me you haven't felt like teaching her a lesson for the way she flirts so shamelessly with Magnus."

"She doesn't mean anything by it, she's with Catarina. And even if she was flirting with Magnus seriously, that doesn't make it ok to kill her," Alec hissed, feeling sick to think that Jonathan had attacked Dot because he thought he was doing Alec a favour.  

Jonathan shook his head, and had the gall to look disgusted with Alec. "All the times I covered for you guys with my mom. Anyway, you're too late. When the spell is done, I'll be able to take them away as easy as I please," he said cheerfully. 

And that was when Alec heard the screams. 

 

\--

 

"They're not real! They're just Jonathan's illusions!" Max yelled, but it was very hard to believe him when the creepy crawlies that seemed to be oozing out of the walls and every crevice in the room looked so _real_. 

Ordinarily they didn't bother Magnus, but it was the sheer volume of them that would have made anybody's skin crawl - centipedes, spiders, huge cockroaches, swarms of ants, black shiny beetles, and scorpions, all writhing and spilling across the floor. The combined sounds of their wings, skittering feet, and carapaced bodies rubbing against each other created a hair-raising susurrus that made Magnus feel like clawing his skin off. There were thick, heavy snakes blocking the windows as well, bodies drooping from the narrow windowsills, although these were thankfully on the outside, it didn't escape Magnus' notice that the majority of the creatures that had suddenly started invading the room were concentrated at the doors and windows, trapping them. They were all huddled in the middle of the room but the spiders had started scaling the ceiling; Dot screamed when a huge one dropped on her shoulder, and she still looked panicky after Catarina brushed it off. Max said that they were illusions but they were certainly real enough to be felt, and when the Chairman swatted a centipede that came too close it definitely made a wet squishy sound. 

"What does he want? He wants us to stay in the room? Run?" Catarina asked.

"Run, of course. If we step outside we'll break the protective spells. We're safe here," Magnus replied, although his words were a lot less convincing with all the spiders creeping up the walls and the venomous creatures underfoot. If they stung you, would it make you feel the illusion of pain, and would it really make a difference that it wasn't real?

Dot let out a low moan of horror, and Magnus looked up to find that the lights were now infested with maggots. The sounds of the fighting downstairs escalated further, and as the walls of the house began to shake, the maggots began to rain on all of them.

"Get them off me!" Dot shrieked, desperately trying to fling them off and starting to get hysterical. 

Then the whole light fixture fell out of the ceiling, and millions upon millions of maggots flooded out of the hole. That was the last straw for Dot - she screamed and broke free from Catarina's embrace, running for the door. 

"Dot!" Magnus shouted in warning, dashing forward to stop her, but her hand was already on the doorknob. As she wrenched the door open with all her might, Magnus felt the protective spell break. 

 

\--

 

Alec could taste blood in his mouth and his whole body felt like a gigantic bruise, but still he forced himself onto his feet and flung another blast of magic at Jonathan. Jonathan laughed and deflected it easily with a flick of his wrist. He had stopped trying to get past Alec to go upstairs, waiting for Alec's next attack with a condescending smile. 

"Is that all you've got?" Jonathan asked, taking a few steps forward.

A loud bang distracted both of them briefly, and Alec glanced behind Jonathan to see Jace struggling to pick himself up, only to be slammed face-first into the floor by another spell from his father. Maryse had been backed into a corner, and Jocelyn was advancing on her with a triumphant expression, one hand raised and crackling with power, while Izzy was prone on the floor, but already stirring. The Lightwoods were losing but they hadn't _lost_ , and Alec wasn't going to roll over and give up. If he couldn't beat Jonathan with magic, he'd just have to try something else.

Alec took two steps forward and punched Jonathan right in his smug face. Jonathan was so surprised that he didn't even think to defend himself with magic until Alec had broken his nose and knocked the wind out of him. Jocelyn turned her head at the sound of Jonathan's pained cries and Maryse took advantage of her distraction to send Jocelyn stumbling backwards, but the magic that Jocelyn had been building flew straight at Maryse anyway, and she was thrown so hard that the solid wood panelling cracked. Maryse fell to the floor and did not move again. 

But this was the stronghold of the Trueblood family, and Maryse's attack had just been enough to put Jocelyn right in the middle of the circle drawn with Maryse's blood. All of a sudden, the chandelier came crashing down with unnatural speed, taking Jocelyn with it - five hundred pounds of glass and steel pinning her to the floor with enough force to dent the wood, and blood began to pool beneath Jocelyn's limp body. For a moment everyone stared in stunned silence, then Jonathan let out a heartbreaking roar of fury and let out a burst of magic that hit Alec squarely in the chest. Alec flew several feet backwards and landed halfway down the stairs; he curled up and used his arms to protect his neck and head but by the time he'd stopped tumbling and hit the floor, he knew he'd broken a few ribs and he was on the verge of blacking out. He could hear Jonathan's footsteps coming down the steps towards him, a door opening somewhere upstairs, and he saw Izzy getting to her feet with her hands outstretched, but he couldn't move.

"Brick and mortar, wood and stone. Protect our loves, protect our home," Alec mumbled as the black in the edges of his vision took over everything. 

 

 

He woke up to Jace patting him on the cheek. "Hey man. You alright?"

Alec nodded gingerly, and let Jace help him sit up, the world still spinning. Jace had healed his ribs, and Alec fixed his own concussion, but he was too tired to bother with bruises and other minor injuries. Izzy was sitting with their mother, and Alec noticed that Jocelyn's body was gone even though the gory reminder of her death was still staining the floor. Stephen was slumped in a corner, except that his neck was at a very odd angle.

"Is he...?"

"He's dead," Jace said, voice tight. 

"Shit. I'm so sorry."

Jace shrugged as if it wasn't affecting him, but all the blood on his face couldn't hide the lines of sorrow and his eyes were red. "If you're ok, I'm going back to Maryse. Izzy and I are both out of juice, it's going to take two of us to get her out of danger. Are you alright to go upstairs on your own?"

"Where's Jonathan?" Alec asked.

"Don't know, he knocked us out. But I think he's gone." 

Alec nodded and staggered up the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs that led to the third floor, he spotted a crumpled heap of grey and white fur, and his heart sank. 

"Oh fuck. Chairman," he muttered, crouching down next to the cat, and to his surprise, the cat blinked at him and let out a weak meow. 

He put his hand on its twisted body; its spine and ribs were broken, and the poor creature had a bloody mouth from internal injuries, but somehow it was still alive. Alec pushed some magic into the cat, probably more than what he could afford at the moment, but he couldn't help himself. In a moment the cat turned its head to nudge its face into his hand, then got on its feet and shot up the stairs. Alec followed it as quickly as he could pushing himself to walk a little faster even though he had a hopeless feeling that he would find either total carnage or an empty room.

The room was in a surprisingly tidy state, almost completely the same as when he had left the rest of them in it. The first thing he saw was Max lying on the couch, legs straight and arms neatly by his side as if he had been carefully placed there, and as he moved closer he saw that Magnus was on the other couch, though less carefully arranged, and Chairman was trying unsuccessfully to nudge him awake. With great relief, he noticed the rise and fall of their chests, and once he'd healed their concussions it didn't take too long for both of them to blink awake. 

"What happened?" he asked.

"Fuck. Did you manage to stop him?" Magnus asked, looking around the room for his friends. 

"No. We got our asses kicked," Alec said.

"He took them, but he's going to keep them alive for now," Max spoke up, rubbing his temples. "He's going to sacrifice them on the spot to The Lady when she rises from hell on Halloween. He was worried that since the book of names doesn't work anymore, if he killed them now the sacrifices would be wasted." 

"Then what about us? Why didn't he take all of us so he would have more sacrifices for Lilith?" Alec demanded.

Max shrugged. "I don't know. He said something about rebuilding the five families to usher in a new dawn for the Salem witches, so I guess he doesn't want us all dead."

"He's gone fucking crazy if he thinks we're just going to forget about all of this and be best friends," Alec muttered.

"Not necessarily. You said he could ask the demon for anything he wants - maybe what he wants is to be accepted and surrounded by friends and family who love him, except that he also doesn't really care if we're all brainwashed and mind-controlled by him," Magnus pointed out, seething with rage and frustration. 

"We'll get them back. We'll stop Jonathan," Alec told Magnus reassuringly, taking one of his hands.

Just then, Jace came into the room, looking very anxious. "Alec, we can't wake Maryse up." 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

The Lightwoods had obviously not spent much time in hospitals, and Magnus supposed that with their powers that wasn't surprising. Despite his fear for his friends, he'd agreed that getting Maryse to a hospital was a more concrete course of action than going on a wild goose chase after Jonathan with no plan, especially since the Lightwoods were all exhausted, physically as well as magically. There was also the matter of the two corpses they now had on hand, an added complication since both Hodge and Stephen had held prominent positions and their absence would be noticed quickly and the last thing they needed was the police getting on their case on top of everything.  

While Alec, Izzy, and Max called an ambulance for their mom, Magnus and Jace had retrieved Hodge's body from the roof. They had wrapped both Hodge and Stephen as carefully as they could in bedsheets and hid the corpses in the cellar to be dealt with later when the Lightwoods' magic replenished, and now all five of them were sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, waiting for the doctor's prognosis. 

All of them looked up when the doctor walked in and Alec got to his feet. 

"How's my mom?" he asked. 

"As far as we can tell, there is nothing physically wrong with her," the doctor replied soothingly. "You said that she collapsed suddenly, but her brain function is normal and there's been no signs of a stroke or heart attack. Her blood sugar is a little low, so we're going to put her on a drip and keep her under observation. I'm sure she'll wake up soon." 

Alec nodded and thanked the doctor, and they filed out of the room quietly. 

"It's probably just magical exhaustion," Alec said in a low voice. "We should all go back and get some sleep, and we can figure out what to do when our heads are a bit clearer."

"Clary isn't replying to my messages. Do you think Jonathan got to her too?" Izzy asked worriedly.  

Magnus privately thought it was very likely, because if he were Jonathan he would want to keep Clary close too. Instead, he said, "Well, it's already past four in the morning. Maybe Clary is just asleep." 

But they weren't the only ones worried about Clary. When they got back to the Trueblood mansion, when they found a van waiting outside for them that Magnus recognised as Simon's. 

"Oh good, you're here too," Simon said in relief when he saw Magnus. "Jonathan came and Clary just... went with him?"

"She was behaving very strangely, almost like a puppet," Raphael agreed. "We went up to the Fairchild house but it was all dark."

"I think it would be safer for the both of you if you just went home," Alec said firmly. 

"Clary is my best friend. I'm not stupid, ok? I know she's hiding something from me, something to do with all of you and her family, and I don't need to know what it is. But if she's in trouble I'm not just going to sit around at home twiddling my thumbs. I want to help," Simon shot back. 

"Yeah, because deadweights are going to be so much help," Jace muttered, and Magnus knew Jace didn't mean him, but it didn't help to assuage his guilt that maybe he would have been a bit more useful if he had powers like the Lightwoods, and his friends wouldn't have been taken by Jonathan. 

Izzy and Alec exchanged an exasperated look, and Izzy finally said, "Ok, maybe food? Coffee? Not now, because we're all exhausted and we're just going to bed. But maybe in a few hours?" 

"And maybe you can help me cat-sit Chairman Meow until this all blows over," Magnus added. 

Much to Magnus' surprise, Alec immediately protested this idea. "I think you should keep the Chairman with you. He'll be safe in the house," Alec insisted, and Magnus gave in with a shrug. 

Simon and Raphael promised to be back around noon with food and coffee, leaving them to get ready for bed after a really, _really_ long day. It was only when they were going upstairs that Magnus realised he didn't have a change of clothes - in the hurry to get to the safety of the Trueblood house, clothes had been the last thing on anyone's mind. 

"I could lend you a t-shirt and sweatpants," Alec offered as they walked to his room, then they both paused at the door. "Oh. I'd forgotten that I put you in my room," Alec said. 

Chairman was meowing loudly on the other side of the door. Alec opened the door and the cat darted out to get to Magnus, winding itself between his legs, but much to Magnus' surprise, the Chairman then wound itself around Alec's ankles too, meowing until Alec picked it up. 

"When did you two become friends?" Magnus asked, and something tickled the back of his mind. "You know, I'm surprised that the Chairman is ok. Not that I'm complaining, of course, but the last thing I remember before Jonathan knocked me out was the Chairman trying to claw Jonathan's face off."

"Maybe he's decided I'm one of the good guys," Alec replied, absently scratching the cat behind the ears. "Um, about the room. I'm just going to take some of my stuff and move to one of the rooms down the hall."

"Or you could stay. This is your room after all."

"There's only one bed, though. And it's pretty small for the both of us."

"You mean we'll have to  _cuddle_? Oh, the torture," Magnus joked, then added a bit more seriously, "It's been a really crappy day, I don't really want to be alone."

"Me neither," Alec admitted. "Well, if you're sure you're ok with it." 

"I'm sure. And you don't have to be worried about me sullying your virtue, the Chairman will chaperone us."

Alec huffed out a laugh and nodded, and followed Magnus into the room with the cat still in his arms. 

 

 

It was nice to wake up next to someone, especially since the weather was chilly and Trueblood house was  _cold_. The Chairman was curled up in front of a narrow patch of sun at the window, and Alec was still sleeping, his face buried in the crook of Magnus' neck and an arm and leg wrapped around Magnus because Alec apparently turned into an octopus when he slept. As much as he wanted to stay in bed with Alec, now that he was awake his fear for his friends was at the forefront of his thoughts again, and he was ready to start the search for Jonathan. Magnus tried to shift Alec's very heavy leg off without waking him up, but Alec made a disgruntled noise and hugged him a little tighter before he seemed to realise what he was doing and let go.

"S'rry."

"It's ok. Good morning," Magnus murmured, turning around to kiss him on the nose.

Alec cracked one eye open and smiled at him, and leaned forward to kiss him back, then hesitated. "Morning breath," he explained. He snapped his fingers, and Magnus had the oddest sensation of something cool running along the insides of his mouth.

"Sorry, I should have warned you before I did that. I know it's kind of gross but sometimes we're running late for school and didn't have time to brush our teeth, so Jace and I came up with this spell when we were in middle school," Alec explained sheepishly. 

Magnus laughed and kissed Alec properly on the lips, and Alec kissed back with enthusiasm, his hands finding their way under Magnus' shirt and up his back. Alec moaned into Magnus' mouth when Magnus grabbed a handful of his ass, but they both pulled away, breathing a little heavily. 

"We've got people to rescue and a demon to banish," Magnus said regretfully. 

"Yeah," Alec agreed, stealing one more kiss before they forced themselves to get out of the warm bed. 

They got dressed and went downstairs just as Simon and Raphael pulled up outside the gate with enough food and coffee to last them a whole day, as promised. They'd even thought to bring a few cans of cat food for Chairman, and even though Catarina had brought the Chairman's kibbles, the cat was only too happy to gobble up the tuna. They promised Simon and Raphael that they would keep them updated on their plans and call on them if they needed any help at all, and Izzy made them hex bags that would hopefully offer a bit of protection from general curses. 

"I called the hospital, Mom's still unconscious," Alec announced. 

"Halloween is tomorrow night, and moonrise is at midnight exactly," Izzy said. "Usually the summoning is held at the house that held the book of names, but I think it's safe to assume Jonathan isn't going to use that place because he knows we're going to try and stop him."

"And Raphael said nobody was at the Fairchild house - even if it's just the protective spells repelling him, I think it's too obvious as well," Magnus added. 

"That gives us less than 36 hours to find Jonathan and the people he's kidnapped or at least find out where he plans to hold the summoning of Lilith, find out how to break the deal, and find out how to banish Lilith," Alec observed. 

"Look, it's one of him and four of us, even if we don't count Magnus. If we can find him now, get rid of him and free the captives, since the book of names has been damaged, shouldn't that be enough?" Jace pointed out. 

"But Jonathan also has the Black Book. It doesn't just give him access to more powerful spells. When the Book gets in your head, it's kind of like... it tries to manipulate you. Like there's another brain plotting and planting ideas in your head, and whatever the Book is, its aim is to serve Lilith - to cause as much death and destruction as it can to feed the demon," Alec explained. "Besides, Jonathan may be insane but he's not dumb. He'll have thought of ways to level the playing field."

"Jonathan may have blocked the tracking on himself and Clary, but he may not have thought to block the tracking on Ragnor, Catarina, and Dot. Jace and Max can help me cast a stronger tracking spell, and if we know where he is at least we would have a better idea of how to rescue his captives," Izzy suggested. 

Magnus nodded. "Meanwhile Alexander and I can take another look at my mother's book and all the other research material you have on demon banishing. Perhaps fresh eyes will spot something."

"And we need to give the bodies in the cellar a proper burial," Jace added quietly. Alec put his hand on Jace's shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. 

They took care of the funerals first, burying both Hodge and Stephen in the small family graveyard right at the edge of the Trueblood property with generations of Truebloods, then split up, with Magnus and Alec going back up to Alec's bedroom to study Izzy's notes and Magnus' mother's book. For a while they sat on the bed quietly reading, while the Chairman sat companionably beside them. Magnus noticed that although the herbs used were different, probably because witches just used whatever grew locally, they all had the same idea - trap the demon in a protective circle and compel it to go back to whatever hell dimension it was from, or trap it in a magically-reinforced container and hide the container where it wouldn't be opened accidentally. Unfortunately salt and herbs didn't seem like they would be strong enough to contain a powerful demon like Lilith. 

Alec put Magnus' book down. "Where did your mom get these ingredients? What happens if she runs out of stuff like this  _kayu angin_?" 

Magnus shrugged. "I don't even know what it's called in English."

Just then, Chairman pounced on the book, pushing it off the bed and onto the floor. 

"Chairman, no!" Magnus spoke sharply, worried that the cat might accidentally tear the fragile pages, but Alec got there before he did. To his surprise, the cat relinquished the book to Alec readily and leapt onto the windowsill to clean itself with a slightly smug air, as if it had just done them all a great favour. 

Alec frowned at the page Chairman had pounced on, then his eyes widened. "Magnus, it's that dagger you have - the um,  _keris_?  _That's_  the thing that has been casting the protection spell around you."

"What? Let me see," Magnus said, and scooted over so they could both read together. 

"And according to my mom the _keris_ can break the _saka_ too," Magnus said, looking at Alec, and his relief was palpable. "We've finally found the solution."

 

  

"So let me get this straight - all we have to do is make sure that Jonathan doesn't kill anyone so that the Reaping isn't complete, and basically tell Lilith to fuck off? That's it?" Jace asked.  

"Well, it's likely that Lilith will attempt to get back at us once we break the _saka_ , but if I stab her with the _keris_ , that should be enough to send her back to hell," Magnus said.  

"And we have to time our renunciation of the covenant at exactly the right moment. If we do it too soon, we won't have the power to deal with Jonathan," Alec added. 

"Alright, so Max has to go and try to give Mom a magic transfusion so she can wake up in time to renounce the covenant. And the four of us will go to the place we tracked Ragnor and Catarina to," Izzy said, and Max nodded. 

"Ok, I'm sorry, man, but I think Magnus should sit this one out," Jace said. "He doesn't have powers like ours, it's too dangerous. He can do the spell thing to break the covenant from here, right?" 

"But I have to be the one to face Lilith, because the _keris_ is _my_ legacy deal - the spirit that lives inside has absorbed the power of the generations of _dukuns_ who have used the blade before me," Magnus pointed out, barely keeping his frustration in check. "I'm not getting benched while you risk your necks to rescue my friends!"

"What if we could give Magnus the same powers as us?" Izzy suddenly said. 

"You can do that? Why didn't anyone tell me this before?" Magnus demanded. 

Magnus could see that the rest of them had caught on to Izzy's train of thought and Alec _really_ didn't look happy about it, but Izzy pressed on anyway. "Well, if you're one of us, you'd have our powers. So, you know, if Alec married you..." 

"Absolutely not!" Alec snapped before Magnus could even react.  

"Ouch," Magnus said. 

"No, I didn't mean it like that," Alec added quickly. "But to bind Magnus to the covenant with Lilith as well? And force him to marry me just for this, how is that even ok?"  

"It's not like it's legally binding or anything like that, it does't mean anything. It's only a ritual," Jace said dismissively. 

"Ok, just so I know all the details, what exactly does this ritual entail?" Magnus asked cautiously. 

"There's a handfasting ceremony that has to be presided over by the head of one of the five families - technically Jace fits the bill. And um..." Izzy paused, looking a little uncomfortable. "Well, you'd have to consummate the marriage for it to count."

Alec scowled and crossed his arms, and Magnus began to understand why he'd been so upset about the suggestion. 

"It's a rule from the old days. Our ancestors might have been witches but they were brought up Puritans," Izzy explained.

"To be honest, I wondered if you guys had already done it when Magnus started busting out abilities to remove curses and control ghosts," Jace contributed helpfully.   

Max groaned and stuck his fingers in his ears. "May I please be excused from listening to this?" 

But Jace's words had sent the cogs in Magnus' mind spinning. "Wait. Are you saying that neither of you have ever-" He stopped short. "Sorry, it's really none of my business."

Jace shrugged. "Well, there's giving your high school sweetheart genital herpes, and then there's giving them demonic powers and a part in a binding contract with the Mother of All Demons." 

"That's true. I don't think there's a condom for that," Magnus agreed wryly. "Well, I think I should talk to Alexander in private about this."

Alec followed him out of the library, which they'd been using as a planning headquarters, and stepped into a room down the hall. Alec cast a charm at the door, probably so his siblings couldn't eavesdrop. 

"I'm going to be honest with you, Alexander. I would do almost anything if it meant getting my friends back safe and sound - even being part of the covenant temporarily doesn't bother me, because we plan to end it. But this isn't just about me. Even if it's just sex, once we take the next step, our relationship _will_ change, and I worry that if we rush into this..." Magnus shook his head. "And the fact that it's a marriage ceremony makes it even more complicated. It's not something that I want to take lightly, legally binding or not."

"I know. Which is why I didn't want to suggest it," Alec agreed. "I mean, not that I don't want to. I was a bit worried about having to tell you that we'd have to wait to have sex, and to be honest I was hoping to end the covenant before we had to talk about it at all, so we could just go with the flow without all of this hanging over our heads."

"I wouldn't have minded waiting, for whatever reason," Magnus told him gently.

"I think I'd basically be living in the bathroom, taking cold showers," Alec muttered, which made Magnus laugh.

"So I'm guessing you don't have a problem with us taking the next step," Magnus said with a grin.

Alec blushed a little but shook his head. "But like you said, getting married isn't just about signing a piece of paper in the courthouse. I don't want you to feel like you're bound to me just because you wanted to save your friends."

"I know we've only been together for a month, and it should be too early to feel this way, but I have a feeling that I won't regret being bound to you," Magnus said quietly. 

"I don't think I'll regret it either," Alec admitted. 

Ragnor and Dot would probably have called him crazy for agreeing to this, and Catarina would have thought the same but tried to say it in a more tactful manner. But as far as crazy plans went, how was this any crazier than going after the Mother of All Demons with a possessed dagger and a bunch of dried herbs? Maybe crazy was Magnus' new normal. 

Magnus took a deep breath, smiled, and reached out to squeeze Alec's hand reassuringly. "Then let's go get married."

  

\--

 

It was night by the time they got everything ready, but the whole ceremony felt surreal to Alec. Every family had a ledger of birth, deaths, and marriages, and the necessary words and sigils for all sorts of ceremonies were recorded in it - funerals, weddings, even a sort of baptism - and they had followed the ceremony to the letter to make sure that it would work. It wasn't a complicated ceremony anyway, just Alec and Magnus holding hands while a length of red rope was wound around their wrists, but it felt very strange to have Jace officiating the marriage, as if they were children play-acting. It was weird and awkward, and while Magnus had taken it in stride with good humour, Alec felt bad that the only person Magnus had around on his side to witness the ceremony was Chairman Meow, and Maryse was going to be really upset with him for getting married without her around when she woke up. To top off the whole thing with an extra heaping dose of awkwardness, after the handfasting was done, they had to make their way to a room upstairs that had been specially prepared for them with their wrists still bound together, and Alec had to try very hard not to think about the fact that his siblings basically all knew he was going to have sex with Magnus. 

"Well, this probably isn't what most people mean when they talk about lighting some candles to set the mood," Magnus observed when he stepped into the room. 

Alec had prepared the room on his own and he'd tried his best, but he knew it probably looked off-putting to anyone else who hadn't grown up expecting something like this. The heavy four-poster bed had been moved to the centre of the room, right in the middle of the circle and sigils for the binding spell that Alec had drawn on the floor with a mixture of his and Magnus' blood. There were also candles placed at each of the four cardinal points, two red candles and a sprig of white bloodroot flowers bound together with a length of twine. If Magnus had decided this was too much and walked out of the room, Alec wouldn't have blamed him at all.

"So if all if this stuff with banishing Lilith and stopping Jonathan hadn't happened, and we got married some time in the future, would our wedding night still have been like this?" Magnus asked.

"I don't know, maybe," Alec replied. "Sorry, I know it's been very weird."

Magnus shook his head and smiled at him. "Alexander, I have the ability to control ghosts and my mother used to perform demon exorcisms in our living room. I'm used to weird," he said, then indicated their bound wrists. "Although I must say starting with bondage right off the bat is a bit kinky for a wedding night."

Alec let out a snort of laughter. "Of all the things, you decided _that_ was the weirdest part about this?"

"Well, that and the rose petals on the bed, I don't think that was part of the instructions for the ceremony," Magnus teased.

"Oh, you noticed," Alec said, a little embarrassed. "I checked though, roses are good for strengthening spells like these."

Magnus laughed softly. "You're very sweet," he said. "And I know this isn't exactly what either of us had in mind, but I feel very lucky all the same." 

Lucky? Alec couldn't imagine anyone ever thinking of being with him and getting mixed up in this whole mess as lucky, but Magnus cupped his face and kissed him, and Alec decided that he wasn't going to question his own luck at meeting someone like Magnus. He helped Magnus over the threshold of the circle, both of them taking care not to smudge the sigils, and Alec had a brief moment of feeling self-conscious again when they were both sitting on the bed, but once they started kissing it was only too easy to lose himself in the feeling of Magnus' tongue sliding against his, his weight pinning Alec down to the bed, his lips plucking gently Alec's lips, and his free hand entangled in Alec's other hand. Magnus shifted between Alec's legs, using his own knees to nudge them apart, and Alec let out a soft moan when Magnus tilted his hips and Alec could feel Magnus' hardening cock pressed against his own.

Magnus began to kiss a line down his jaw and his neck to the sensitive spot at his pulse point, and Alec bucked up into Magnus, his free hand finding Magnus' ass to hold him in place so he could grind up against him. Magnus tugged at the hem of Alec's shirt, but it was proving very difficult to get out of anything with their hands bound together. 

"Clothes," Magnus groaned between kisses. "How do you get out of them with this-" 

Alec snapped his fingers without thinking and the surprise of suddenly having all their clothes vanished away shocked a laugh out of Magnus. 

"Eager, aren't we?" Magnus murmured, shifting himself to line their cocks up together, and started rocking his hips so that their cocks were rubbing against each other. 

"You have no idea," Alec panted, desperately rutting against Magnus in an attempt to get more friction. 

Magnus grinned at him and kissed his way down Alec's chest to flick his tongue at a nipple, one hand wrapping around Alec's cock to stroke the hard length with slow, teasing movements. Alec hastily summoned the bottle of lube from the nightstand to the bed and coated his fingers generously before reaching behind himself to push a finger in, pumping it in and out of himself a few times before hurrying to push a second finger in. 

"What's the rush?" Magnus teased, rubbing his thumb over the head of Alec's cock in firm, slow circles. He sucked his thumb inside his mouth, moaning in appreciation at the taste of Alec's precome. 

"Magnus,  _please_ ," Alec groaned, already fucking himself in earnest with his fingers. 

Magnus leaned forward to claim Alec's lips in a hungry kiss, tugging on Alec's hand to ease his fingers out, then he rearranged Alec's legs so that Alec's knees were braced against his chest. Heart pounding with a mixture of nerves and anticipation, Alec watched as Magnus coated his cock with more lube, giving himself a few firm strokes, then he felt the head of Magnus' cock pressed gently into the dip of his entrance. 

" _Magnus_ ," Alec moaned, squirming at the feeling of having Magnus' cock so close to being inside him. 

Magnus pressed in just a little bit more, the tip of his cock pushing into the tight ring of muscle at Alec's entrance. Magnus waited until Alec was looking properly at him, their gazes locked, then he pushed in a little harder, and Alec cried out as he felt Magnus' cock sliding into him, slowly stretching him open. 

" _Fuck fuck fuck_ -" Alec gasped. The thickness and heat of a hard cock pushing into him was much more intense than his own fingers, and he couldn't stop himself from clamping down on the intrusion. 

"It's ok, Alexander. Take a deep breath for me and push out a bit while I push in," Magnus said soothingly. "Ready?" 

Alec nodded quickly and took a deep breath as Magnus thrust his hips forward again, moaning as he felt himself being filled a little more, and a little more, deeper than his fingers had ever gone. 

"You're taking me so well," Magnus murmured encouragingly, rocking gently as he worked his cock into Alec. 

Then Magnus thrust in the rest of the way, and they both gasped when they were hit by a surge of raw power. The candles around the room flared up high enough for the tips of the flame to touch the ceiling and the blood-circle on the floor glowed gold for a second before everything went back to normal. 

"Did it work?" 

Magnus opened his eyes, and Alec's breath caught in his throat. Magnus' eyes were black as midnight, with no whites at all.  

"Yeah, it worked," Alec said, voice tight.  

Then Magnus blinked, and his eyes went back to their normal warm brown. "Since this counts as consummation, if you want I could stop now," he suggested, although his voice was strained from the effort it was taking him to hold still inside Alec. 

Alec wasn't sure if Magnus was serious or teasing, but he made a sound of protest and hooked his ankles at the small of Magnus' back. "C'mon, Magnus. Move."

Magnus smiled. "Like this?" He ground his hips into Alec and Alec's brows furrowed at the strange sensation of feeling Magnus moving inside him. 

"Or like this?" Magnus asked softly, pulling out a little before thrusting back in with a sharp snap of his hips. 

"Ah! Fuck, Magnus," Alec gasped, mouth falling open in pleasure as Magnus did it again, and again, fucking him with a series of short, hard thrusts, before slowing into long leisurely strokes that made Magnus' cock drag on a spot inside him.

Magnus leaned down to kiss him again, deep kisses that became sloppier and messier as Magnus began to fuck him faster and harder. Magnus shifted Alec's ankles over his shoulders, and at this new angle suddenly Alec could feel the head of Magnus' cock hitting his prostate with every thrust into him. The pleasure of it was unfamiliar but _incredible_ , so good that Alec could feel every jolt all the way down to his toes and every time Magnus slammed into him he couldn't help crying out. 

"Magnus, I'm so close," Alec panted against Magnus' lips, pulling their bound hands towards his cock, and he keened as they stroked his cock together in time to Magnus' thrusts.

"Me too. You feel so good," Magnus moaned, his rhythm starting to falter. 

"I'm going to come," Alec grunted as the heat inside him began to twist and coil tighter and tighter. "Magnus... Magnus!" 

Alec gasped and shuddered as he began to spill his release all over their joined hands, and Magnus let out an answering cry of pleasure as he buried himself as deep inside Alec as he could go. Alec felt Magnus' muscles stiffen as his body flexed involuntarily around Magnus' cock, and then Magnus was coming inside him, filling his body with warmth. 

 

 

They went downstairs early the next morning and found the rest of Alec's family already in the kitchen, with the volume of the small TV set in there turned up almost to maximum. Everyone looked up when they came in holding hands, although Max couldn't quite meet their eyes.

"So it worked?" Izzy asked. 

Magnus grinned and snapped his fingers - the TV turned off with a crackle of static and an alarming pop, followed by an acrid smell of something burning. 

"Oops. Maybe that was a bit too much," Magnus said. 

"Well, congratulations to the newlyweds," Jace said, and threw a handful of cornflakes at them. "Sorry, no rice in the house," he explained blithely when Alec glared at him. 

"Ok, now that Magnus is powered up, I'm going to bring Max to the hospital to sit with Mom, Magnus can practice how to control his new magic, and all of you can familiarise yourselves with the blueprints I managed to find," Izzy said briskly. "The plan is to go in immediately after sundown - that should give us six hours to rescue the hostages and subdue Jonathan, minimise the time we have to keep him down, and still be in time to deal with Lilith at midnight." 

"Where is this place again?" Alec asked, frowning as he looked over the blueprints Izzy had managed to dig up.  

"Danvers State Hospital," Jace answered, wrinkling his nose. "The old abandoned mental asylum."

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

 

 

Danvers State Hospital, also known as the Danvers Lunatic Asylum, was a multi-acre, self-contained facility for mental patients that had been built in the 1800s on the top of Hawthorne Hill, formerly the home of the judge that had presided over the Salem Witch Trials. Overcrowded and underfunded, the asylum had been shut down in the 1960s due to rumours of inhumane and controversial treatment, especially since some of its patients were children. Despite its horrific past, there had been strong public sentiment that it should be preserved as a historical monument. And yet, some mysterious mix-up in the paperwork and serious miscommunication had allowed it to be partially demolished, then abandoned in a state of ruin, with nobody really knowing what to do with it - conveniently helping to obscure the fact that the asylum was connected to the network of secret underground tunnels, the same ones that held the hiding place for the Black Book. 

"Great, obviously it's connected to the fucking tunnels. Why am I even surprised?" Jace grumbled. 

"Do you think it's likely that Jonathan will have put his captives in the tunnels? Does the spell that represses our magic work throughout the entire tunnel system?" Alec wondered aloud. 

"Doesn't matter even if it does, we've got Magnus," Jace said dismissively. "Won't even have to worry about ghosts now."

"When they started demolishing the asylum, they started with the buildings on the lower grounds and slowly worked their way up to the top of the hill," Izzy said, pointing at the map. "The only bits of the original asylum that still remain are these two blocks, D and G, the administration building, the cemeteries, and probably the tunnels. But they also built four apartment buildings on the land, and the remains of those are still there even though they were gutted by a huge fire about ten years ago." 

"That's a lot of ground to cover. But we should be able to narrow it down with the tracking spell when we get there, right?" Magnus asked, and Izzy nodded.

"Ok, so Max will call us when Maryse is awake, and Magnus managed not to explode the last three candles he tried to light. I say we're good to go," Jace declared, shouldering the bag Izzy had packed. 

 

 

It was drizzling when they arrived, and the sun had only just set, casting everything in gloomy blue light. The ruins of the asylum might have been abandoned but the land still belonged to the State and was supposed to be out of bounds, so they opted to approach the asylum from the overgrown vacant land at the back where a dense thicket of trees surrounded the edge of the property and Alec could hide the car to avoid awkward questions. This also meant that they had to go through the cemetery on the way uphill, and Alec found that he was more disturbed by the fact that most of the grave markers bore no names, just a patient number, because their families hadn't bothered to claim their bodies and the administration of the asylum hadn't cared enough to name the patients that had died from their mistreatment.

"I don't see anything," Izzy observed as they trudged through the tall grass. 

"No ghosts here," Magnus agreed, although he seemed to be shivering from the cold. Alec put an arm around him, and Magnus flashed him a brief but bright smile. 

"No, it's not just the ghosts. There aren't any protective wards. Something's off," Izzy said with a frown. 

"Hey, it's Jonathan. Logic doesn't apply here. He probably doesn't think we can stop him - in fact, he probably thinks we're here to join him," Jace pointed out. 

There were a lot of dark gaping windows in the red brick shell of the building that loomed above them, giving the building the disconcerting look of a large creature with a multitude of hollow eye sockets. Even though only three of the original nine buildings remained and the top section of the central tower had been removed, Alec could sort of see why the asylum had been nicknamed "the castle on the hill".

"Izzy, can you check if we're on the right track?" Alec asked.

"Already on it," his sister muttered distractedly, rummaging in her bag for her dowsing rod, then frowned. "We're going to have to split up," she announced.  

"Split up? Iz, that's like the first bad decision made in every horror movie ever," Jace said.

"Something is blocking my tracking," Izzy explained.

"At least that means we know Jonathan is definitely here," Magnus said. 

"No splitting up," Alec decided. "We're going to need all of us working together when we find Jonathan. This place isn't _that_ big and we've got six hours. Even if we have to cover both the asylum and the apartments, it'll take us two, maybe three hours, tops." 

"Alright," Izzy agreed reluctantly. 

Most of the doors were boarded up and secured with heavy iron chains, but they forced open the nearest door with a bit of magic and found themselves in a corridor in Block D, which had housed the patients who were recovering well and almost ready to go home. The dull beige paint was peeling off the walls in sheets, and for some reason there were patient reports strewn everywhere, like someone had emptied all the filing cabinets onto the floor before the place had been vacated. The darkness ahead of them was deadly silent.

"Magnus, are you ok?" Alec asked quietly, noticing the uneasy look on Magnus' face. 

"There's something here. Not ghosts, not in the strictest sense of the word, because I don't feel them as individual spirits, but this place is haunted by something all the same," Magnus replied unhappily. "Unfortunately, I think our best bet is heading towards it, because that's probably where Jonathan is." 

With Magnus in the lead, they made their way down a hallway that was supposed to lead them to the administration building. They passed a few wards on the way, and Alec noticed that one room had a wall plastered full of photographs, the prints already faded and torn but still recognisable as candid family pictures, memories of loved ones.

The block of wards they'd left had been in a bad state, but the administration building was in an even more alarming state of disrepair. The rain must have gotten in when the top of the tower and part of the roof had fallen in, and it was impossible to avoid the stagnant pools of black slime that covered all the floors that hadn't already caved in. Then they moved on to the last block, which wasn't in a much better state, but all of them immediately felt the presence that Magnus had noticed even before they entered the building. This block had been reserved for the children, and something terrible must have happened here to create a miasma of despair so acute that Alec could feel his own mood plummeting. They found a room filled with rotting luggage bags spilling faded toys and once-bright clothing, all the belongings of the patients who had been checked in to the hospital and never got to leave, and there were rusty skeletons of too-small hospital cots abandoned in the middle of hallways together with cracked plastic toys. 

Magnus led the way to the basements with unerring certainty, and even Jace couldn't hold back a horrified gasp when their eyes adjusted to the gloom. 

"They kept the kids in fucking _cages_?" Jace growled, magic sparking at his fingertips in rage. 

A movement in one of the miserable cells caught Alec's eye, and his heart sank when he recognised the face of the spectre. There was too much blood for her to be anything but a ghost, and if Dot was dead, then they were too late and the Reaping was complete. 

"Are you happy now?" she asked him accusingly. "You thought of putting me up for the Reaping, and Jonathan did it for you." 

Alec shook his head, about to open his mouth to protest, when he heard Izzy let out a sob. 

"Clary, no," she whispered brokenly, and Alec turned around in shock. Izzy was staring at a spot a few feet away, but Alec couldn't see anything there. 

Alec frowned and looked at Jace - Jace's face was a mask of horror, apparently watching something come down the stairs behind them. "Jace, what are you looking at?" 

"It's my dad's ghost. Can't you see him?" Jace whispered.

Alec shook his head. "I think we're all seeing something different. Magnus?"

Magnus was looking at something inside a different cell, but tore his gaze away with effort. "They're not real," he said, half to himself as much as in response to Alec. "They're not real," he repeated more firmly. "I think they're like hallucinations." 

"Lilith will come for all of you, including Magnus, and drag all of you to Hell with her when Jonathan uses the Reaping to give Clary back her magic," the ghost of Dot said. "You've doomed his soul."  

Alec tried his best to ignore her. "Can they hurt us? I mean, physically," Alec asked. 

"I'm not sure but I don't think so. My magic doesn't work on them, and if we can't touch them, they shouldn't be able to touch us," Magnus replied. 

"Is someone there?" they heard someone call out from the other end of the hallway. Alec thought he recognised the voice as Ragnor's.  

"Please get us out of here!" another voice cried out - Catarina. 

Was it a trap? If only Ragnor and Catarina were here, then Jonathan had probably left them as decoys, expecting them to try to track Magnus' friends. They'd have to get Magnus' friends out of here quickly and continue the search for Jonathan.

"Hang on, we're coming," Magnus called back.  

The four of them took a few tentative steps into the darkness. Alec knew it must have been the hardest for Izzy because she had to walk towards the spectre wearing Clary's face, but he noticed that Dot's "ghost" stepped towards them as they moved, and it was making his hair stand on end to have all these _things_ closing in on them from all four sides, especially since he could only see one of them.

"I fucking hope you're right that they can't hurt us, Magnus," Jace muttered, apparently on the same train of thought.

Alec's personal spectre seemed to be keeping her distance, even if it was only a scant few feet, but by the time they reached the cells right at the end, Alec's nerves were jangling from having her constant unblinking stare on him, especially since he didn't dare to look away. 

"Ragnor? Cat?" Magnus called into the gloom of the last two cells.

Alec conjured up a ball of pale blue light, suddenly remembering that Ragnor and Cat couldn't see in the dark like they could, and within moments, Magnus' friends' tear-stained faces appeared at the bars, shocked and disbelieving. 

"Magnus? Is that really you?" Ragnor asked. 

"We'll have you out of there in a minute," Magnus said. He grabbed one of the bars of the cell Ragnor was in, and with an ear-splitting screech of metal, Magnus wrenched the bar right off. 

Ragnor backed away, eyes wide. "Magnus, _your eyes_. What have you done?" 

"Let's get out first and talk later," Alec suggested, already working on the bars of Catarina's cell. 

Between the four of them, they made short work of the bars and helped Ragnor and Cat out of the basement. Alec could still see his personal spectre trailing after them silently, and he'd half expected them to be attacked when they left the basement with Ragnor and Cat, but they managed to get out the way they'd come unmolested. Magnus pulled Ragnor and Catarina into tight hugs, and the rest of them decided to give him some space while he explained everything to his friends. 

"Where's our next best bet for finding Jonathan?" Alec asked, checking the time on his phone. It was half-past seven.

"Valentine's grave? It can't be the room that the Book was in, he needs somewhere with more space, and somewhere secluded so he won't be seen," Izzy said.

"I think we need to think like, totally crazy," Jace disagreed. "Where's the most unlikely place you'd pick to kill someone and raise a demon?"

Behind them, Alec heard Ragnor let out an incredulous "You and Alec got _what_?" and glanced backwards briefly. Magnus caught his eye, grinned and winked before turning back to try to calm his friend down. 

Just then, Alec's phone went off. "Max? Is Mom awake?"

" _Yeah, and holy crap I think I could sleep for a week_ ," Max said.

"Hey, don't go to sleep. We need you awake too, when it's time to renounce the covenant," Alec reminded him.

" _Yeah, yeah. No worries about that - you know how Mom is the Mayor and people got really worried when they found out she's in hospital? The chief of police just came around to visit her, and they're flirting so hard they're even worse than you and Magnus. Gross._ _Mom's really upset with you for getting married without her around, by the way._ "

"Why did you have to tell her about- oh my god, Max," Alec griped.

" _Anyway. So I overheard the police guy talking to someone on the phone, and apparently the roads leading into Salem Town are all blocked_."

"Because of the parade?" Alec asked with a frown. 

" _Unless the people they hired to man the roadblocks are really getting into the Halloween spirit, I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to be trying to eat the people going out_."

"Oh fuck. Ok, you and Mom stay safe, alright?" Alec replied, and cut the call. "I think Jonathan's going to raise Lilith at the Halloween parade," he told the rest of them. 

"See, I told you - gotta think crazy," Jace said with a sigh. 

 

\--

  

"...ok, when I said think crazy, I didn't mean _this_ crazy," Jace grumbled.

"If the roads are blocked, this is the only other way into Salem Town," Izzy pointed out.

As far as tunnels went, this was a lot like the ones under Salem Town, except that the walls and ceiling were built from the same red brick as the exterior of the asylum and had once been painted white. A few feet away, Magnus saw a rotting mattress in the middle of their path, but it had disintegrated so badly that half of it was just grey cotton strewn everywhere. They were under the administration building, and as the only living things in the building now that Ragnor and Catarina were safely in Alec's car and on the way to the Trueblood mansion, the presence that had been the most concentrated in the children's wards still lingered around them, although Magnus was very glad that it didn't seem strong enough to take the form of his mother again.

"How long is it going to take us to walk to downtown Salem? Three hours?" Jace muttered darkly as he began to trudge after them.

Alec nodded. "The spell that represses our magic might kick in once we get into the downtown area, but Magnus should be able to dispel it. And with the spell in place, Jonathan probably wouldn't have thought of venturing into the tunnels anyway, so this time that's going to be an advantage for us."

"I've warned Simon and Raphael to stay indoors and bar the doors, and they'll be clearing the space in front of the sealed up entrance to the tunnel that's in the cellar of the Coffeen Brew so we can break through more easily," Magnus added. "The parade is supposed to stop at the open space right in front of Salem Museum, and the Coffeen Brew is just down the street from it."

It certainly was no fun walking for hours through the dark claustrophobic tunnels, but Magnus found it more bearable with Alec's hand in his and the distraction of the new senses his new magic had given him. It was so strange to be able to see in the dark without aid, to focus on any of his senses and magnify them if he chose to, to feel the power thrumming inside his veins just waiting for him to do something with it - call up a light or blow up a wall. Alec had cautioned him about using too much magic too quickly, because this was all still very new for Magnus and he didn't know his limits, but Magnus had soon realised that the greater danger wasn't how easy it might be to exhaust himself, but how easy the magic came to him and how invincible it made him feel.

They were lucky that there had been no cave-ins, and the tunnels from Danvers to Salem Town mostly consisted of long straight stretches of brick-lined underground paths, some of them even with railway tracks. They reached the border of Salem Town in less than three hours without encountering any curses or bobby traps, but it took almost half an hour for them to get to the Coffeen Brew since there seemed to generally be more rubbish and dead-ends in the winding tunnels.

"Stand back. Jace and I will handle this," Alec murmured when they finally reached the rusty iron gate embedded in the concrete that marked the doorway in the cellar of the Coffeen Brew.

Alec and Jace placed their palms flat on the solid concrete, nodded at each other, then _pushed_. Cracks immediately began to appear in the concrete, spreading outward from their palms, and with one more push the entire wall came crashing down in pieces, taking the iron gate with it. Raphael and Simon approached cautiously as the four of them emerged from the darkness of the tunnels, and Raphael wrinkled his nose at the mess they'd made of his cellar and the smell from the tunnels, but surprisingly didn't have anything acerbic to say for once. 

"It's mad out there," Simon told them nervously. 

They crowded around the windows to peek at the chaos going on in the streets outside. The streets were lit up with elaborate hanging jack o'lanterns and music was blasting out from the speakers, and all the booths for trinkets and snacks had been set up - but nobody was shopping or admiring the decorations. There were a lot of people, all in costume, dressed up as everything from ghouls to playboy bunnies, and they were all screaming in terror and trying to run away from several "people" whose costumes looked far too realistic - demonic creatures, all sharp fangs and glowing eyes. There was a distressing amount of blood that Magnus knew wasn't the fake stuff, but he could tell that the demons weren't trying to kill the party-goers but trying to herd them like sheep into the town square. 

"That's why Jonathan didn't mind giving up Ragnor and Catarina. He's going to just sacrifice everyone here, whether or not they have the gift," Izzy said. 

"One hour to midnight. What do we do now? There are way too many people and demons, how are we going to free everyone and get them out of Jonathan's reach?" Jace asked. 

"We can't do it on our own, we'll need some help," Magnus said, and turned to start rummaging through his bag. 

"Magnus, what are you doing?" Alec asked. 

Magnus finally found what he'd been looking for and held it up triumphantly - the bottle of apple seeds he'd extracted from the apples he'd received from the ghost of Bridget Bishop. "I've got a plan."

 

 

They made a protective circle in the middle of the floor of the coffee shop with Izzy's special blend of herbs and things, but it was Magnus' magic that called forth the spirit of the old woman from a handful of crushed apple seeds. Her smile for Magnus turned sour the moment she set her eyes on him, and she didn't look any happier when she looked around the room and saw that it was full of the descendants of those who had sacrificed her to Lilith three hundred years ago.

"You became one of _them_ ," she said to Magnus accusingly. "I knew there was a bit of witch in you, and I hoped you'd escape the same fate that befell us, but not in this way."

"I'm fighting fire with fire," Magnus explained. "Mistress Bishop, we're trying to end this, all of us. But we can't do it alone, and the whole town is in danger."

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" the ghost asked haughtily.

"I know that some of you still linger in the world of the living to watch over the town. Jonathan Fairchild has raised an army of demons - we need an army of our own to beat him, an army of ghosts, all the people who have died because of the Reaping over the centuries."

"If we rise on your bidding, do you swear to do everything in your power to end the reign of the Salem witches?" the ghost demanded.

"Yes," Magnus agreed with hesitation.

"Words without blood are nothing but air," she said challengingly.

Magnus raised the _keris_ in his hand and sliced his palm open, letting the blood drip onto the floor in front of the ghost. Next to him, Alec took over the blade and cut his palm as well, wordlessly adding his blood to the oath, followed by Izzy and Jace. The ghost of Bridget Bishop smiled in satisfaction.

"We just need you to get everyone to safety, away from Jonathan," Magnus told her. 

"Aye, we know what needs to be done. You do your part and we'll do ours," she replied, then turned and vanished on the spot. 

Immediately, the screams on the streets outside increased in volume, but Magnus noticed with satisfaction that he saw more people running away from the town square now, instead of towards it. 

"Are you sure it's going to work? They're just ghosts," Jace said.

"Three hundred really angry ghosts versus a dozen demons? I think we've got a fighting chance," Magnus replied, peering outside.

Frost was beginning to creep up the window, and Magnus could see hundreds of spirits rising up from the ground and emerging from the walls, their pale dead faces sending a chill running down his spine even though he was the one who had summoned them and he knew they were on their side. Everyone in Salem Town was going to have nightmares for years after this, provided they survived. 

"Half an hour to midnight, we're cutting this close," Izzy said anxiously, already messaging Max to warn him to be ready. 

Alec was chewing his lip, deep in thought. "Simon, Raphael - you said you wanted to help, right? So here's what I need you to do..."

 

 

As soon as crowds on the streets thinned, the four of them hurried out of the Coffeen Brew. Izzy had given them their positions - she would take the east, Jace would take the west, Alec would take the north, and Magnus would take the south - and they closed in on the town square. They could hear the sounds of things crashing and a few stragglers were still running away, but by the time they got in view of Jonathan banishing the last of the ghosts, the town square was empty of the living except for them, Jonathan, and Clary and Dot, who were propped up in a corner out of the way, staring blankly into space. Magnus also noticed Jocelyn's bloody corpse had been placed in a wheelchair parked next to Clary, her head lolling. 

"We bind you, Jonathan, from doing harm - harm against others, and harm against yourself," Magnus recited, knowing that the other three were doing the same. 

Jonathan froze and spun around in a circle as the four of them emerged from their hiding places, still reciting the binding spell. The remaining ghosts stepped back, fading away to their hopefully peaceful rest. Magnus could see that Jonathan's eyes were fully black, but it was the growing smile on his face that was more unsettling. 

Then Jonathan shrugged off their binding spell as easily as taking off a jacket and threw a blast of magic at Magnus without warning. Magnus barely managed to deflect it with a blast of his own, but this seemed to really upset Jonathan. 

"You got married and didn't even invite me?" Jonathan asked Alec, and his next blast was aimed at Alec, more of a glancing blow let out in frustration. "What will it take for you to actually treat me like one of you guys?" 

"Maybe if you weren't trying to kill us and everyone in the town?" Jace shot back, sending a blast at Jonathan that Jonathan deflected effortlessly. 

"I wasn't going to _kill_ you," Jonathan said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, what does it matter? I could ask the Lady to bring you back, just like I'm going to bring my mom back."

"Jonathan, I'm so sorry, but she's dead. And Clary is just fine without magic. Just let it go," Izzy said pleadingly. "You can break the covenant with Lilith together with us, and we'll get you some help."

"What, like a psychiatrist? You think I'm crazy, you just want to lock me away in an asylum and throw away the key," Jonathan said with a bitter laugh. "Doesn't matter. The Lady will make everything right." He snapped his fingers. 

Four bolts of lightning came straight out of the clear sky - there was no avoiding them. One hit Magnus squarely in the chest, and he gasped as he was slowly lifted off the ground, the lightning binding him with excruciating pain. Opposite him, he could see Alec floating off the ground as well, face contorted with pain, and Jace and Izzy on either side of him were caught in similar predicaments.

"The moon rises and the Lady comes," Jonathan announced, and it was only now that he was suspended several feet off the ground that Magnus could see more clearly that Jonathan had been drawing some sort of summoning circle on the ground with his blood. "I knew I was going to need a little extra to ask the Lady to bring my mom back and give Clary back her magic, plus keep all our powers. Since you've lost me all my sacrifices, I guess the four of you will have to make do."

"Jonathan, don't do this," Izzy said through gritted teeth.

"Don't worry, Izzy, of course I'll ask the Lady to bring you back as well. Your deaths will be very temporary," Jonathan said, bending down to put the finishing touches on the summoning circle.

Then he turned towards where he'd left Clary and Dot, only to find that they were gone. "Clary?!" 

In his panic to find his sister, Jonathan let go of the four of them. Magnus landed a bit harder than he'd liked to, but he picked himself up just in time to help hold up his side of the containment spell. Jonathan growled and slammed against the spell, and they all staggered but managed to hold on.

"It held your father's ghost, so I figured it would hold you too," Izzy said. They were each holding up an iron nail with a strand of Clary's hair wound around it, but it was Izzy who held the main talisman - a small jar containing a seagull's heart. 

"C'mon, there are four of us and one of you. Even if you have the Black Book, you've been summoning demons and shit all night," Jace pointed out. "Did you honestly think it was going to be that easy? Why did you think we didn't go to town on your ass the moment we saw you?" 

"You were the distractions," Jonathan said in realisation. 

It had been a big gamble, because Magnus was pretty sure none of them had been expecting that trick with the lightning that Jonathan had pulled. But Alec's ruse had worked in the end, and thankfully the spell Alec had cast to discourage Jonathan from paying attention to Simon and Raphael while they stole Clary and Dot from right under Jonathan's nose had worked.

"Did you really think this little spell will hold me for long?" Jonathan growled. 

"We don't need to hold you for that long. As you said, the moon rises and the Lady comes," Alec said grimly.  

Somewhere a clock struck twelve, and the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. Jonathan stumbled to the side of the summoning circle as a yawning hole began to open in the middle of it, and even they weren't cruel enough to trap him inside with the demon when it emerged - Alec was the first to drop his hand, and they all followed his lead to allow Jonathan out of the circle.

The creature that rose out of the summoning circle looked like a beautiful woman, clad in white from head to toe with long dark hair and winged eyeliner that was seriously to-die-for, but then she smiled at them and Magnus thought it was like watching a shark smile.

"Where are my thirty-three offerings?" she asked, saccharine-sweet.

"My Lady - we're only short of one, and if you give me just five minutes, I'll be able to find her," Jonathan stammered. 

"One? I think not. The deal was for thirty-three lives, and I have not received a single one," Lilith replied. She eyed the rest of them with hunger in her eyes, but Alec shook his head and met her gaze squarely.

"There will be no more Reapings, not from me. I renounce the agreement between us, and I want nothing of you or yours," Alec said firmly.

Lilith laughed. "Bold words, but you have never known a life without my gifts. Everything you have come to think of as yours - nay, as _you_ \- I will take away."

"Take it," Alec bit out.

"As you wish," Lilith said, and reached her hand out towards Alec. "Here, now, and forever - I take from you every power I gave." 

To Magnus' horror, Alec fell to his knees with a cry of agony, and Magnus saw the power being ripped from him - a burst of black smoke erupted from Alec's mouth, drawn into Lilith's waiting hand.

"Anybody still feeling foolish enough to renounce their covenant with me?" Lilith asked. 

"I do. I renounce the agreement between us, as do my brother and mother," Izzy said immediately, holding out her phone, where the voices of Max and Maryse could be heard faintly.

"Me too," Magnus said.

"Yeah, don't want it," Jace agreed.

Lilith shrugged and reached out her hands towards them. In a moment, Magnus found himself screaming - he felt like his blood was on fire, and the demon's magic spewing out of his mouth felt revolting. Magnus was almost certain that he was going to vomit for real - and Jace _did_ vomit for real - but once it was over he felt both empty and _cleansed_.

"That leaves you, Jonathan Fairchild, and your sister, Clarissa Fairchild," Lilith said, turning to Jonathan. 

Izzy's eyes widened in fear. "Jonathan, let go of Clary and let her renounce the covenant! There's no way you'll be able to find thirty-three people for the Reaping now."

Jonathan seemed to be struggling with it, but in the end his love for his sister won out. In a few minutes, Clary came running towards them from the alleyway, her eyes full of fear at the sight of them on the ground and in pain. She ran straight to Izzy, trying to help her up, but Izzy shook her head. 

"Renounce the agreement with Lilith first," Izzy insisted. 

Clary nodded, looking confused, but repeated the words clearly, although her renunciation was a lot less dramatic because she had no powers to relinquish. That left only Jonathan, and Magnus was sure he wasn't going to renounce the covenant until Clary spoke up. "Jonathan, you're the only family I have left. It's over. If you can't fulfil the Reaping, Lilith is going to kill you - please, don't leave me alone," she said, tears in her eyes.

Jonathan stared at his sister and opened and shut his mouth a few times, unable to get the words out. "I renounce my covenant with you, My Lady," he finally said.

Magnus had expected Lilith to get angry about them all renouncing the covenant, but she continued to smile, although she seemed to take vicious pleasure in taking Jonathan's magic from him, drawing it out slowly, and by the end of it Jonathan was a blubbering mess. 

She looked around at them and Magnus felt his hackles rising as her smile grew wider. "I must say, it's good to be free," she said, and took a step towards them - _out of the summoning circle_.

"How the fuck?" Jace muttered, eyes widening.

"The spell dies with the spellcaster, haven't you heard? Or in this case, the death of the spellcaster's magic," Lilith said, eyes flashing. "And now I am free to feed on as many as I wish - starting with all of  _you_." 

But Magnus was ready for her, as were Izzy and Alec. Before she could take another step forward, the two Lightwoods were on their feet with the herbs for exorcism that they had mixed according to Magnus' mother's recipes, and they each flung a handful at Lilith. It was enough to distract Lilith, if not hurt her, and Magnus drove the blade of the _keris_ straight through her heart with all his strength. The effect was instantaneous - Lilith let out a shriek that reminded Magnus of the cries the Book had made when he and Alec had been trying to fight off its influence, then Lilith seemed to shatter outwards in an explosion of hellfire.

Alec pulled Magnus away from Lilith and they all shielded their eyes from the blinding glare, and when the light faded they saw that all that was left was the _keris_ lying on the ground in the middle of the circle, gently smoking.

 

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

 

 

It was strange to go back to something as mundane as classes, assignments, and exams, but tragically Magnus' professors weren't going to excuse him on account of him having to help his boyfriend end a centuries-old deal with the Mother of All Demons and Magnus wasn't going to end his final year on anything lower than a 3.8 GPA if he could help it. 

Unfortunately, schoolwork and the fact that he'd missed a couple of shifts at the hospital in all the chaos weren't the only things Magnus had to worry about. Maryse had managed to explain away the fiasco at the Halloween parade as hallucinogenic drugs that someone had put into the dry ice machines as a prank, pulling some favours with her connections that thankfully had nothing to do with magic, and ordinary scepticism had done the rest of the work for them - most people _wanted_ to believe in a rational explanation, not demons and ghosts. But Jocelyn Fairchild, Stephen Herondale, and Hodge Starkweather had gone missing under very suspicious circumstances, and Maryse was running herself ragged trying to keep the police out of their business. Magnus knew that Alec had been trying to help his mother in whatever way he could while also juggling schoolwork and his duties as student government president as he prepared to hand over the baton before graduation, so all in all life was a bit crazy even with the Reaping dealt with and Lilith banished.

There was one other thing that the remaining Salem witches didn't want to talk about, but even though Magnus had only had a taste of Lilith's demonic magic for a day, he understood. After Lilith had taken back the magic, he had felt lighter, and there had been an energy that came with being in a fit and healthy body, but he had also felt the loss of its heady power. For a while after that, he hadn't even been able to feel his own natural magic, his senses so overwhelmed by the sheer force of Lilith's powers that coming down from it had been like a crash after an extreme sugar or caffeine high. He couldn't even imagine how bad it was for the other witches, especially since they still weren't sure if they had any powers of their own. Jonathan was in the worst state, since he had been channelling the power of the Book at the time, and had gone catatonic after Lilith had taken away his magic - he was currently recuperating in a private psychiatric facility with the best care the Lightwoods could afford. 

Magnus knew Alec didn't regret giving up his powers, but as the demon had said, he was having to rediscover his own sense of self, and there wasn't much he could do for Alec other than to be there for him and help provide a distraction on the bad days. Thankfully, Alec's usual choice of distraction was one they were both enjoying quite a lot. Magnus certainly had no complaints having his hips pinned down in what was technically his _marriage bed_ (would the reminder that Alec was his husband by ritual marriage ever stop making him feel stupidly sappy despite the insanity of it all?) with his cock inside Alec's mouth and two of Alec's fingers inside him as Alec tried to get the hang of finding his prostate. 

"Ah! Alexander," he murmured, trying not to buck up into the beautiful heat of Alec's mouth. 

Alec pulled off briefly. "Here?" he asked hoarsely, curling his fingers in just the right way again, and Magnus moaned, spreading his legs a little more. 

Alec pressed a gentle kiss to the head of Magnus' cock, fingers moving in surer circles as he watched Magnus' face grow slack with pleasure. Magnus could see Alec's cock hanging heavy between his legs, neglected in his dedication to Magnus' pleasure. 

"Come up here," Magnus urged, and claimed Alec's mouth in a heated kiss. 

He wrapped a hand around Alec's cock, stroking it a few times, but Alec pulled away.  

"I'm gonna come if you do any more of that," Alec said with a breathless grin. 

Alec slid his fingers out of Magnus carefully and quickly slicked up his own cock with more lube as Magnus folded his knees up to his chest. Then, bracing himself lightly on Magnus' thigh, Alec guided himself into Magnus.

At the first press of Alec's cock against his rim, Magnus took a deep breath and willed himself to relax. There was a dull ache as the blunt head of Alec's cock began to stretch him open, but his eyes were on Alec - the fascination and wonder on his face as he watched Magnus' body taking his cock. Alec had to pause when he was halfway in to centre himself, and by the time he bottomed out his brows were furrowed and his face was red from the effort it was taking to hold his orgasm back. 

"Fuck, Magnus, you're so..." 

"It's ok, Alexander," Magnus murmured, fighting the urge to flex around the wonderful fullness inside him. 

He reached out for Alec, pulling him forward so that Alec was caging Magnus' body with his own. He looked into Alec's dilated hazel eyes and cupped Alec's face before kissing him sweetly. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Alec whispered back.

Magnus' other hand went to Alec's shoulder, now unblemished by Lilith's mark, and he stroked Alec's arm and back soothingly as Alec took several deep breaths to pull himself back from the edge. Then Alec buried his face in the crook of Magnus' neck and gave an experimental thrust, and Magnus gasped.  

"Good?" Alec asked as he mouthed at Magnus' pulse point, his hard cock sliding into Magnus from tip to base in one swift stroke as he snapped his hips sharply into Magnus again. 

"Incredible," Magnus replied with a moan, tilting his head back to give Alec more room to suck bruises into his throat and shifting his hips to help Alec hit his prostate. 

And oh, was Alec a quick study. Once he found the right angle to make Magnus cry out with pleasure, he fucked Magnus with aching slowness, rolling his hips every time he thrust into Magnus in a way that made his cock drag over the sensitive bundle of nerves inside Magnus. Magnus' cock was trapped between their bodies, brushing against their abs with a barely-there friction that made Magnus arch helplessly into Alec, and Alec had Magnus' wrists pinned to the bed in a tantalising show of strength. 

Alec picked up the pace, his cock driving into Magnus faster and harder and his breaths coming out in ragged pants that fanned the skin of Magnus' neck. " _Magnus_ ," he gasped as his rhythm began to falter. 

"I've got you. Just let go," Magnus whispered.

Alec groaned and buried his cock deep inside Magnus, hips grinding against his ass and the thick base of his cock stretching Magnus' rim, and Magnus moaned as he felt Alec's release filling him. He reached down to touch himself, losing himself in the feeling of Alec still inside him, and the grip of the slick channel formed by his fist as he jerked himself off. But in the end, it was the way Alec looked at him while he brought himself off under him - admiring him, _wanting_ him - that finally tipped him over the edge.

Alec bent down to kiss him, his cock slipping out of Magnus as he shifted, but then he reached down to rub Magnus' come-slick and sensitive entrance and Magnus batted his hand away with a huff. 

"Not that I wouldn't like to spend the whole day in bed with you, darling, but if we keep this up, you're going to be late for your meeting with the school administration."

Alec began to kiss down Magnus' jawline and neck. "Shower together?" he suggested, and Magnus could hear the grin in his voice. 

"That's going to take more time, not less," Magnus said wryly. 

"True," Alec conceded with a laugh and stole one more kiss before going off to shower. 

 

 

By the time Magnus came out of the shower, Alec was dressed and ready to leave. 

"I'll pick you up after class. Half-past four in the parking lot?"  

"Yes, good luck with your meeting," Magnus agreed, kissing Alec goodbye.  

Chairman Meow slunk into the room the moment Alec opened the bedroom door, stopping to let Alec scratch it behind the ears before heading for Magnus. 

Magnus had moved into the Trueblood mansion partly because his friends, especially Dot, were still severely traumatised from her ordeal. It wasn't that they blamed Alec and his family for any of it, but they were skittish around Alec, and Magnus knew it made Alec feel bad. In fact, he knew that Dot and Cat were planning to move out to Boston once term ended, since it was only thirty minutes by train, and it was unlikely that they would remain in Salem after graduation. The Chairman, however, seemed quite happy with its new home - the cat had free reign of almost the entire place, and Maryse and Max were always slipping it treats. It didn't even seem to mind being shut out of the bedroom at night.  

Magnus still had an hour to kill before he had to leave for school, and he should really have been squeezing in some revision time, but he found himself opening his mother's box of things to poke around instead. He had been trying to figure out if there was a system to the way the things were arranged - healing ingredients grouped together, perhaps, because they were not in alphabetical order - and Chairman came to sniff around curiously.  

"You probably know exactly what everything is for, don't you?" Magnus said, petting the cat on its head.

Chairman ignored him in favour of sticking its face into the box, then a paw - as if it was trying to get at something at the bottom. Magnus frowned and lifted Chairman out of the way, carefully removing several glass bottles before he spotted what the Chairman had been pawing at - a brown envelope. It was surprisingly heavy, and Magnus soon realised why when he emptied it onto his palm and a gold ring fell out. It was a men's ring, a bit old-fashioned, and had a blue-green stone set in it, and Magnus wondered if it was some sort of heirloom meant for him. He fished inside the envelope and found a note written in his mother's neat handwriting: _For the one who brings you happiness_.

Magnus stared at the ring in his hand, turning it over and watching the stone in it shift from green to blue and back again under the light. He was starting to get the feeling that his mother had foreseen the future or part of it, and known that she was going to die before she got to see Magnus graduating, getting married, and all of that. Was this meant to be a wedding ring for Alec? 

"If he's the one who brings you happiness, _annaku sayang_."

Magnus' head snapped up at the sound of his mother's voice, and he looked around the room quickly, but it was empty. The only sign that perhaps he hadn't been imagining things was the Chairman strolling up to the open window and sitting at the foot of it to meow sadly, the way it sometimes did when one of them left the room.

 

\--

 

Alec had been prepared for this, especially after the curse in the tunnels had temporarily robbed them of their magic. Most people weren't able to tell when their sister was awake, or sense when their best friend was walking across the cafeteria towards them. Most people had to actually flick the switch to turn the lights on, and bore with all the little discomforts of life like a too-cold lecture room or a bruise from banging their knee into something without complaints. It would take some getting used to, but he knew he would get there someday, and it was a small price to pay for the sheer relief of finally being free of the deal with Lilith. 

Besides, it wasn't exactly like the time in the tunnels, because he wasn't completely _without_ magic either. He hadn't spoken about it to anybody, especially Izzy and Jace, in case it was just wishful thinking on his part. But some days he thought he could feel something very faint thrumming under his skin, almost within reach. And it was clear that some of the magic that had belonged to his ancestors was truly theirs, and not Lilith's, since some of the spells that were tied to their blood were still working - even though they couldn't sense the warding around Trueblood mansion, Magnus had assured them that the protective spells were still holding up, and the clearest sign was the fact that the house that held the book of names remained invisible to everyone else but them.

And speaking of books, there was one last thing that they had to do. 

Alec didn't get a chance to see Magnus at lunch because he wanted to spend some time with Cat and Dot, but he was waiting for him in the parking lot after school as promised. Magnus had taken the day off work at the Coffeen Brew but they swung by to pick up Clary and Izzy before heading to the hidden house together. Maryse, Max, and Jace were already there when they arrived, and they headed down to the basement together. Both the Black Book and the book of names were in a locked safe that only Maryse knew the combination to, and today they were going to make sure nobody was tempted to summon Lilith ever again. 

Alec and Jace drenched both books in lighter fluid and threw a match on them. The book of names caught on fire almost immediately, pages and pages filled with the names of the people who had died because of their families turning into black ash, but the Black Book remained stubbornly untouched. For a moment, Alec was worried that the Book would try to turn the fire on them or turn them on each other in a bid to save itself, but for all the evil and power it contained, it turned out to still be leather and parchment after all. The flame turned bright green and the Black Book let out an ear-piercing screech, but the pages shrivelled in the heat of the fire and there was an explosion of power that almost knocked them off their feet when the flames finally devoured the cursed object. 

"Are you alright?" Alec asked Maryse, reaching out to steady her. 

Maryse nodded, patting his arm. "Stay a little while. I have something for you - the thing we talked about previously," she said in an undertone. All of Alec's anxiety came back in full force for an entirely different reason, now mixed with anticipation, and his mother smiled at him in understanding.

 

  

They all drove out to the park on Winter Island with the ashes of both books in a jar. The sun was already setting, the sky turning dusky pink and blue as Clary and Izzy scattered the contents of the jar into the water and the chilly wind, and that was that. Maryse herded the rest of her children away with an encouraging smile at Alec, and Alec led Magnus away to their usual spot at the lighthouse.

"What was that about?" Magnus asked when they were finally alone, fidgeting with his ear cuff, having probably been affected by Alec's own nervousness.

Alec took a deep breath. "So, um. I know you've applied to Harvard Med, and Boston isn't that far away, but are you planning to move to somewhere closer to campus?"

"Just because I've applied doesn't mean I'll get accepted, you know," Magnus said with a smile. "I would love to get into somewhere nearby, but I might end up somewhere a little further."

Alec nodded. "I know. You're leaving Salem in the summer." That was part of the reason why he'd been in such a hurry to get everything ready.

But before he could speak again, Magnus said, "You could come with me."

"What?"

"I remember you once told me that you'd never left Salem, and I suppose that's because of the deal with Lilith. But now that's over, you could go anywhere you wanted to." 

"You're right," Alec said, a slow smile spreading on his face as the realisation dawned. "I could go with you. I mean, I think I might want to come back here eventually if my mom stays, but I wouldn't mind going anywhere, as long as it's with you."

Magnus beamed. "That's settled, then. Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?" 

"Um, no. It's just that... I knew you'd be leaving. And I know that before we went through with the handfasting you said you were ok with being bound to me, but I didn't want to make you feel like I'm trying to tie you down-"

"Oh, you want to tie me down? I thought you'd never ask," Magnus joked.  

Alec let out the breath he'd been holding in a snort of laughter, and took out a ring from his pocket - the Lightwood family ring that he'd asked his mom to help him get resized for Magnus. "I wanted to propose to you properly. Magnus, will you marry me?"  

"Yes, of course," Magnus replied softly, tilting his chin up to kiss him. After a while, he pulled away, smiling. "Actually, there was something I was going to ask you too. Alexander, will _you_ marry _me_?"

Alec looked down at the ring Magnus was holding out, completely lost for words, then pulled him towards him and kissed him soundly. 

"Can I assume that's a 'yes'?" Magnus teased when they finally broke apart, laughing and breathless.

"Of course it's a 'yes'," Alec replied, grinning. 

He put on the ring for Magnus first, then held out his hand for Magnus to put on the ring for him. The moment the ring was on his finger, Alec was hit by an image - of a face of a woman who bore some slight resemblance to Magnus, smiling warmly, and he knew immediately that she was Magnus' mother. 

"Alexander, are you ok?" Magnus asked worriedly, and Alec opened his eyes. 

"Yeah," Alec said with a small laugh of relief. "I saw an image of your mother putting this ring in an envelope and putting it at the bottom of that wooden box of hers?" 

Magnus' eyes widened in surprise, then he smiled and grasped Alec's hand firmly in his. "Well, I guess there's still a bit of witch about you, after all. But I already knew that."  

Alec took one look at Magnus' mischievous expression and let out a huff of exasperated laughter. "If you're going to say it's because I've _bewitched_ you, I swear..."  

Magnus laughed brightly, kissing Alec to stop him from completing his threat, and the sound of their laughter carried across the calm, dark water of the harbour and beyond.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, hope you enjoyed it! If you want to, you can come say 'hi' on twitter @tethysea if that's your thing.
> 
> Until next time, XOXO


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